


You'll Be Well Done!

by SelkieMaiden267



Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Terra vs. Kefka, dub-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:45:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelkieMaiden267/pseuds/SelkieMaiden267
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kefka intended for "the worst" to happen to Terra when he sneaked into Ultimecia's castle to steal a potent lust-inducing potion. But even though he picked the wrong Chaos-minion to set on Terra's trail, he still manages to cause tremendous amounts of trouble in both the Order's Sanctuary and the Old Chaos Shrine. Takes place during the 13th cycle, largely ignoring the events of Duodecim. Told from various POVs, changing from chapter to chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How about you give me that power?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy Dissidia or any characters or locations within, or any elements from other Final Fantasy games that might be mentioned.

**How about you give me that power?** _(intro; Kefka to Ultimecia)_

No sign of that silly old witch anywhere—she had “business” somewhere in Pandemonium and would be away from her castle for at least five hours, whatever that meant. Good. It meant there’d be nobody around her domain but a bunch of those wimpy little Manikins, I can just destroy whichever one of them gets in my way. And knowing the witch, she’d only have detection-spells in place to sense warriors of Cosmos approaching, and wouldn’t think she needed to worry about fellow Chaos-minions in her domain.

Perfect.

I just needed to find what I was looking for. Now where would a wicked witch hide that sort of thing? I looked around. Winding stairs all over the place, gears turning in this corner, more gears in that corner. I looked down—pretty much the same, except for the occasional broken wall or pillar. Not likely for me to find anything useful, because she wouldn’t hide something so valuable in just any old nook or cranny. Then I looked up—and I saw it. A door. Might be the door to her bedroom, where, of COURSE, she would have the object of my search!

I was right—that door was the door to her bedroom. Not bad for a control-freak sorceress, I had to admit. The room had been decorated in lots of dark shades: purples, reds, black and some shades of gray, with a great-big brass bed in mauve-and-maroon bedcovers. I quietly stepped in and looked around. Would she have it hidden in the dresser, or that old drawer-chest with the fancy clock on top of it? Under the bed somewhere? In the bedside cabinet? Or maybe it was in the carrying-case behind the large oval tilting mirror?

I went behind the mirror and opened the case—it appeared to be some kind of portable potion-brewing kit, with a cauldron and some kind of cauldron-stand, some wooden spoons, and various ingredients: tonberry blood, cactuar needles, malboro sap, a powder marked “T-Rexaur claw,” and other stuff like that. Close, but if there were no actual potions in there, what I was looking for wouldn’t be there either. Nope, it wasn’t. I shut the case and continued looking.

No luck in the dresser—only clothes in there, apart from some disgusting potpourri-type smell that came out whenever I opened one of the drawers. The drawer-chest with the clock also didn’t yield anything—only clock parts and hourglasses, candles, some books, more potion ingredients; one drawer held more cauldrons in various metals. Useless junk, the lot of it!  
So I finally tried the bedside cabinet. Ha! There it was, on the shelf, in a two-thirds-filled square bottle that was almost too tall for the shelf. Lust Potion Number Eight. Dark red like too-sweet cherry juice—and guaranteed, according to the open recipe-book on the dresser, to induce lust against even the strongest will.

I couldn’t help but laugh aloud at my victory, once I’d made it out of the witch’s domain with this oh-so-potent potion tucked safely up my sleeve. Even little Celes, icy girl that she was, would never have been able to resist this potion’s effect had I been inclined to use it on her—and my real target was no Celes Chere; he had a lot more…fire…in him. This was good, because it meant that this particular sadist would be much more inclined to take pretty Terra by force, once I popped the notion into his silver-haired head.

So that left the second order of my business: getting a clear shot at my “target” and snatching it—here in a flash and gone without a trace! I made my way back to the warriors’ quarters in the Old Chaos Shrine. In hindsight, it really was fortunate that the others chosen by the God of Discord, with the exception of maybe Kuja and the Cloud of Darkness, knew me only as the annoying clown who loved to provoke his fellow Chaos-minions into fights. Why, one asks? Because it means I can disguise just about any evil plan as a simple try at starting a fight!

Retrieving a few packets of firecrackers from my room on the very end of the hallway (across a corridor that led in either direction to flights of stairs), I set them, one by one, in a path leading from Room Seven—my target’s room—to Chaos’s throne room. I needed time to hit-and-run, especially given that my target had thus far most _strenuously_ resisted my attempts at provocation. So I stopped a few yards on the side of Room Seven opposite my firecracker trail, unscrewed the cap on the lust-inducing potion, and produced a tiny pouch containing a lock of Terra’s shiny green hair to add to the potion. Seeing the potion start to fizz when I added Terra’s hair to it, I quickly screwed the cap back on and shook it up. Time’s a-wasting with the potion in this volatile state, so I fired a tiny bit of flame to set off the first firecracker, in order to quickly lure my target out.

You’ll be well done, Terra…oh, yes…you’ll be well…DONE!


	2. Not what I expected...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Realizing that her favorite lust-inducing potion has been stolen from her, Ultimecia sets about replacing it...when she receives a most unexpected visitor.

**Not what I expected…** _(intro; Ultimecia vs. stronger opponent)_

Not even midmorning, and today was already quickly going downhill. First, the annoying clown Kefka Palazzo woke everyone in the Old Chaos Shrine up in the middle of the night by setting off firecrackers and then running down the hallways in the warriors’ quarters screeching and laughing. In fact, my right wing still ached from where feathers had been painfully yanked, when Garland had seized hold and demanded to know which way Kefka had gone. Quite unfortunate it was, really, that the loyal lackey of Chaos had not managed to catch that irritant and carve him to ribbons. All right, now I know better than to sleep in the Old Chaos Shrine warriors’ quarters instead of the luxuriant boudoir in my own castle.

When I reached my own bedchamber, however, I saw something else that made me even angrier. The door to my bedside cabinet was ajar—I never, ever leave it open—and when I looked inside, I discovered that my bottle of Lust Potion Number Eight was missing. What the hell?! Who was in my private domain while I had been away? I would have thought that my own bedchamber was far enough away from any sort of prying eyes, but it now appeared that I was mistaken. I would have to cover my bedchamber and the area surrounding it with stealth-sensoring spells in case of further attempts by anyone else, be they servants of Cosmos or Chaos, to enter my domain.

Once I secured my dominion, my next order of business was to replace the potion that was stolen from me. Clearing a space in one corner of my room, I set up my ten-quart silver cauldron on the iron cauldron-stand from my potion kit and gathered up all my necessary supplies. Pine nuts, figs, rosemary, nutmeg, basil, buckwheat honey, kava-kava leaves, licorice root, asparagus, vanilla extract, passion-fruit juice, a perfectly ripened pomegranate…all well and good, I seemed to have all the aphrodisiacs on hand for my potion. A pinch of bomb dust, for quick effect, and then I needed blood of a ruby dragon, for potency and endurance (and yes, partly for the potion’s distinct ruby-red color), and cactuar juice, for volatility. All I seemed to be missing was powdered T-Rexaur claw. I looked in my potion kit case—alas, I did not have enough T-Rexaur claw in powdered form; I would need to mash some more. Fortunately, however, I did not need to add the powder until two-and-a-half hours into the brewing process; I would have plenty of time even without my ability to bend said time as I chose. Conjuring a fire underneath the cauldron and two pints of water inside, I retrieved an alder-wood spoon from my drawer-chest and began the brew by adding five whole figs and a cup and a half of pine nuts. The addition of a quarter-cup of cactuar juice and five minutes of stirring then left me free to cut the asparagus and separate the pomegranate arils from the fruit’s outer flesh.

I had just finished gathering all the pomegranate arils into a bowl, and had even mixed myself a Diablos Cocktail to drink as I worked, when I saw a flashing at my full-length oval mirror and looked up to see a long blade, thin as a whip, protruding from the mirror’s surface. I knew at once that the blade must belong to Sephiroth—an action on his part that, admittedly, took me by surprise. So he had figured out that the full-length mirror in my quarters-room at the Old Chaos Shrine was actually a portal into my real bedchamber (and the only area around which I had not placed any detection spells), which was not surprising in itself. What piqued my curiosity was the fact that Sephiroth, of all Chaos’s warriors, had business for which he felt the need to come to me. “Enter, Sephiroth, and state your business,” I told him matter-of-factly.

And enter Sephiroth did, dismissing his sword in a flash of light and shifting so as to avoid dinging the mirror frame with the heavy pauldrons on his leather coat. “I have a request to make of you,” he stated simply, his expression unreadable, “hopefully just a trifle for a witch such as yourself.”

A request. That explained everything, as it was probably the only reason why Sephiroth would willfully seek out the company of another Warrior of Chaos, but why me of all people? “Very well, what is the nature of this request of yours?” I cordially asked as I added two tablespoons of minced kava-kava leaves to my potion and measured out a cup of passion-fruit juice to add a little while later.

“A potion to induce lust,” he replied with a surprising directness. “Preferably your most potent one.”

I let out a short laugh of delight. “As a matter of fact, I happen to be brewing a lust potion right now,” said I, but my laughter died down in annoyance as I continued, stirring all the while, “not that you want to know why, but it’s in order to replace one that was stolen from me for some reason. Why?” I asked him teasingly as my mood brightened again, “Do you mean to use it on your foe, Cloud Strife?”

“Contrarily to popular belief, no,” Sephiroth answered irritably, his glowing aqua eyes flashing in a glare that clearly indicated he didn’t appreciate my teasing. “I mean to seduce the girl who is Kefka Palazzo’s nemesis,” he instead elaborated with another flash of irritation at mention of the clown’s name, “the half-Esper, Terra Branford.”

So Sephiroth intended to seduce Terra. “Brilliant notion!” I complimented. “For surely you must know that Terra’s fire magic is much stronger than her ice magic—perhaps you think to use that principle to your advantage. Set her body on fire, and no matter how her will tells her to be ice, the flame will eventually consume her!”

“Indeed.”

“But why play with pretty little Terra, I wonder?” I began to ask. Was this intended seduction merely a ploy to antagonize a certain chocobo-headed swordsman, namely by beguiling a woman who was supposed to be fighting alongside this Cloud Strife? If so, I supposed that I would have to somehow make the silver-haired man bargain with me for the potion he requested, unless he gave me a reason to believe that his act of seducing the Esper girl would also suit either Chaos’s plans or my own.

“I could think of many reasons,” answered Sephiroth in a tone that indicated he was now taking it in his turn to try and tease me as he leaned casually against the wall. “Any man who serves Chaos might lust for the beauty of Terra’s body as well as the power of her magic—maybe I then see seduction as the means of swaying her back to the discord-god’s side all too willingly.”

And he obviously considered an insane clown who did not understand the art of subtlety to be far too incompetent for such a purpose. When I acknowledged as much, he went on, “Of course, it could be that I’m deeply irritated with said insane clown and want him destroyed.”

“And you know that in some cases,” I replied, enjoying our conversation as much as I enjoyed brewing my potion, now adding the passion-fruit juice to the mix, “a night of passion fraught with mind-blowing orgasms can empower a woman to the point of feeling as though she could take on the world. But Terra Branford doesn’t need to take on the world—she only needs to take on a feckless destroyer of worlds.”

“Exactly.” Sephiroth, too, seemed to enjoy discussing his plan for seduction of an innocent with a voyeuristic sorceress like myself. Whether it was because he thought it in his interest to humor me, or because he was falling under the aphrodisiac effect of the potion’s vapors as I brewed it, I neither knew nor cared. “And if I can persuade Terra to let me, in a manner of speaking, pour my power into her,” he continued, “she will then be able to strike that annoying clown so much harder when she confronts him.”

Basically, Sephiroth either wanted to sway Terra back to the side of Chaos by seducing her, or he wanted Kefka Palazzo destroyed and therefore wished to empower the green-haired red mage for the task at hand. Both were excellent reasons for him to seduce the girl; I had to give him credit for that.

“Unfortunately, this potion takes a few hours to brew, so you may wish to leave and do something else,” I advised him. “I don’t enjoy bending time when I make potions, you see, lest the alteration of time’s flow also alter the results of my work. Come back to me for the finished potion after about four hours.”

“As you wish.” And with that, Sephiroth left without further preamble. I suspected, however, that the annoying clown must have irritated him still further in the time between his leave-taking and when he returned to pick up the small bottle of potion that I had promised him, because he appeared almost as annoyed when he returned as when I had teased him about intending to use the potion on Cloud, of all people.

I then took the time to explain to Sephiroth exactly how the potion worked: “What’s particularly convenient about this brew in comparison to other lust-inducing potions is that the seducer need not persuade his target to eat or drink anything laced with the potion. All you need to do is use your bare hands to rub the potion into the target’s skin, namely Terra’s, after you’ve cast a simple sleep-spell on her. I should advise you, though,” I began to caution, “that according to the book from which I got the recipe, men who use this potion sometimes experience premature ejaculation during the act of rubbing the potion into the skin of those they would seduce. However, if you haven’t used up your entire supply of the potion when this happens, you can, of course, use it to your advantage.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for your help,” said Sephiroth politely as he took his leave. Whether he meant to bring Terra back to Chaos’s ranks or see the girl remove Kefka from them, I hoped his plan succeeded.


	3. Don't fear the power to destroy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seeing that Terra travels with the young Luneth, Sephiroth sets not one but TWO plans into motion when he kidnaps Terra on Luneth's watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this story, the Onion Knight will go by the name of Luneth (alternate costume), and the Warrior of Light will go by the name of Hikari (closest fanon to an actual name that I've seen).

**Don’t fear the power to destroy.** _(intro, Sephiroth to Terra)_

So Terra was traveling with the child Luneth, as I discovered shortly after beginning to search the Lunar Subterrane. This was almost too easy.

It looked like I might not even need to cast my own _Sleepel_ spell on the lady in red if I wished to snatch her from under the boy’s nose, as several manikins were rapidly converging on Luneth and Terra. A Phantasmal Girl had just fired an ice spell at Luneth, and four others now closed in on Terra even as she started casting fire spells at the False Stalwart that attacked her: an Imitation Despot, a Fallacious Wanderer, an Imaginary Soldier, and a Transient Witch. The last of those five was most convenient for me, as Ultimecia had ordered all manikins that assumed her own shape to cast sleep-spells on Terra if they caught sight of the girl.

How long could Luneth and Terra hold their own against the manikins before I had to intervene in order to ensure my plan’s success? I needed Terra alive and as unharmed as possible, albeit under either the Transient Witch’s sleep-spell or my own, and I needed Luneth alive as my witness.

Terra seemed to be doing well; she had destroyed both the False Stalwart and the Fallacious Wanderer, and was now trying to strike down the Imitation Despot while avoiding her multiple foes’ attacks. Luneth, on the other hand, was either weak even as a swordsman-in-training or facing a much stronger manikin than any of the ones that teamed up against Terra; his opponent was taking blow after blow from the boy’s short sword and still was not destroyed.

A bright explosion told me that Terra’s Flood spell had just destroyed the Imitation Despot, but I was unable to tell whether she now focused on the Imaginary Soldier or the Transient Witch. Black Materia in hand, I prepared to call Meteor down on the manikins once the Transient Witch did its duty and successfully struck Terra down with the sleep spell that Ultimecia promised.

At last! I saw Terra collapse into a fast-asleep heap on the ground, having flown right into the path of the Transient Witch’s spell as she dodged the Imaginary Soldier’s lunging sword-thrust. At the same time, another flash of light indicated that Luneth had just destroyed the Phantasmal Girl and was about to attack the Transient Witch next. I called down Meteor, forcing Luneth to run away in order to avoid it.

Luneth had just rushed to Terra’s side and was trying to shake her awake when I emerged from behind the cliff side. “She won’t wake,” I told the child calmly, my tone unnerving him further when he took in my appearance.

“You…you’re Sephiroth, aren’t you?” the boy answered accusingly. So he knew who I was, whether it was because Cloud had warned him or because Cosmos herself had apprised all her chosen of who among the soldiers of Chaos was whose enemy. I didn’t much care how Luneth knew, only that he did. “What do you mean, she won’t wake? That manikin didn’t…”

“No, Miss Branford is still alive,” I replied to the question that Luneth was too frightened to voice as I approached. “She’s just under a witch’s sleep spell.”

“And why are you even here?” Luneth suddenly found the nerve to demand, picking up the thin foil-like sword that Terra had dropped when the sleep spell hit her. “You’re obviously not here to help us.”

I chuckled from behind my smirk at the child’s foolishness. Did he really think to take up Terra’s blade and try to fight me? But he was right: I certainly wasn’t here to help Luneth, although I did hope that on some level, I would be of some help to Terra. “I’ve come for the lady in red, of course,” I replied to his question, now standing at the perfect stance to summon Masamune if Luneth tried to stand and defend Terra against me. “Now stand aside.”

“No!” Luneth defiantly cried as he raised Terra’s sword in a fit of bravado. Whether he meant to hurl it at me, or lunge and try to strike, was of little consequence as I would allow neither blow to connect.

I summoned Masamune, holding it slightly back so that the tip of the deadly blade was just inches from Luneth’s face. “Don’t make me tell you twice, Luneth.”

“No! I won’t let you have her!” the child cried out again as he threw Terra’s sword at me, which I effortlessly dodged. I made a fluid stroke with my sword even as I dismissed it, cutting a gash along the right side of Luneth’s chin that made him reel in pain, then going so far as to knock him down again with a kick to the side as I carefully positioned Terra so that I could easily carry her in my arms.

“Cloud won’t be the only one after you!” the boy had been reduced to shouting, as though in a last attempt to threaten me. “I swear, if you even _scratch_ Terra, we’ll all be out for revenge!”

I smirked at the child again. “I won’t harm her if she is already wounded,” I replied to Luneth’s weak little threat just before extending my single black wing to fly away, toward the World of Darkness. Yes, by all means, Luneth, run to Cloud for help. Tell him that the enemy has kidnapped the only woman among the soldiers of Cosmos.

I meant to seduce Terra, not to rape her, and I was telling the truth when I promised not to harm the girl unless she happened to be a virgin, in which case some slight harm couldn’t be helped. But I certainly had no qualms about doing what would cause Cloud to fear the worst on account of the lovely green-haired mage—namely, capturing her in order to send a clearly-outmatched witness running to the puppet with the terrible news.

Only an hour of flying to reach a secluded spot among some pillars in the World of Darkness, and Ultimecia had promised that her manikin’s sleep spell would last another two hours. I was making excellent timing. Laying Terra safely down, I then proceeded to divest myself of everything I wore except my trousers, separating the straps and pauldrons from my coat so that I could make a bed for myself and Terra on it. That being done, I looked at her, taking a moment to savor the sight of my lady in red sleeping so peacefully before I retrieved the flask of Ultimecia’s lust-inducing potion from the pocket of my trousers.

As I massaged the potion into the bare skin of Terra’s slender neck and delicate shoulders, I began to envision all of the many ways in which I would draw her passion out of her writhing fairy-like form. She might attempt to resist me at first, but soon the fire in her body would prove much stronger than the ice of her will. And when I parted her lips with my tongue in a fervent kiss, I would make her forget why she ever even tried to fight. As I slid my hands over every inch of her beautiful figure, I would hear her moan in as many tones of need as possible. She might try to bite back her moans, but I would hear each one of them as I kissed my way over her small but perky breasts, dissolving all coherent thought the moment I dashed my tongue against one of her sensitive nipples and then the other.

I looked further down Terra’s body and saw that one leg of her stockings was torn at the thigh, as it must have happened when she was fighting. How convenient. I removed the high-heeled red boots from Terra’s feet and the torn stockings from her legs so that I could massage the potion into her skin there, as well; if she had the wit to ask, I would simply say that the stockings had been badly torn in her battle. Seeing that Terra wore a red pair of bikini panties under her stockings and short sheath-dress, I envisioned sliding the panties off her slim, smooth legs and then kissing my way up each thigh until I reached the soft emerald curls at the apex. Even now my mouth watered and my tongue ached, as though I could already taste the salt of her essence—but it was nothing compared to the way my member throbbed, wanting to slide in hilt-deep and leave no sensitive nerve within her untouched, to feel her clench so tightly with her orgasm that it forced me to come undone as well.

Then, when I had thoroughly exhausted us both, I would wrap myself protectively around my green-haired beauty and we would sleep. When we woke and it became time for us to dress and part ways, I would send her on her way with a fond farewell.

And then, with her magical power tremendously bolstered by our night of passion and all the orgasms that I gave her, I would see Terra rip that annoying clown to shreds with her fire and ice and her Tornado spells, for all the irritation that he has managed to wring upon not only me, but everyone else unfortunate enough to serve the God of Discord alongside the mad clown-mage.

Would Cloud manage to hunt me down before, or after Terra destroyed the irritant? I sincerely hoped for the latter, as it would infuriate the puppet further than even I thought possible to know that it was I who enabled the lady in red to defeat her foe once and for all, empowering her greater than Cloud, or any man who served Cosmos, could ever hope to.


	4. I--I can win this!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wounded and frightened, Luneth makes a desperate bid to find a Cosmos-serving ally who can help him rescue Terra. But is he walking into a trap, or leading his ally into one?

**I – I can win this!** _(intro, Onion Knight fighting with low HP)_

Curses! What was I going to do? I didn’t have a healing potion on me, and I really needed one. Not only was I bleeding from a bad cut on my face where Sephiroth had slashed me when he kidnapped Terra, but that awful Cloud of Darkness had come along for a fight and knocked me around with her tentacles. My left side hurt so much, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a cracked rib. I wasn’t even to the edge of the Lunar Subterrane yet, and it was really getting hard to walk on my twisted right ankle. But I had to keep going…I had to find help! I had to find someone who could heal me, but more importantly, I had to find someone who could help me rescue Terra.

I’d promised to protect Terra when she needed me…and I had failed her the moment Sephiroth threatened me with that scarily long sword of his.

Even when I saw what looked like a way out of the Lunar Subterrane and into another piece-of-a-world (it might’ve been the Rift, or at least part of it), I couldn’t help but look despairingly around me. Cosmos help me, for all I knew, I could be going in completely the wrong direction! I could be running away from help instead of towards it! But there was nothing for it. I took a deep breath and plunged through the portal when I got there.

This desert-like area felt familiar, somehow…but just thinking about it seemed to roast me alive. I stopped, and with great effort, I focused my will enough to cast a Blizzard spell that would cool me off, at least for the moment. I kept going; I don’t know how long I walked or how far I got.

Then there was movement out the corner of my eye. I turned, and there was a figure of a person that seemed to be moving in my general direction. Was it real, or just a mirage? And if the shape did belong to a person, did he (or she, for that matter) serve Cosmos or Chaos? Gods, I hoped it was someone who served Cosmos!

Bracing myself, I took a few more wobbly steps in the sand. It wasn’t helping that the bright sun and blowing sand were making it hard to see. Walking was painful, but I would have even more sand blinding me if I tried to crawl instead of walk. And that figure…it seemed so close, and yet so far away…I had to at least find out who or what the figure was…not that I could have hidden anywhere if that shape was another enemy…

I finally climbed to the top of the dune, but then I hit my head hard just after I felt the world slip out from under my feet—

—running footsteps that got louder as they came towards me—

_“Luneth. Luneth! Luneth, are you okay?”_

I felt a strong arm lift me up from wherever I’d fallen as I heard that male-sounding voice, and I felt the opening of a bottle, or a canteen, press my lips in a way that urged me to open my mouth and drink. I dizzily opened my eyes. The water in the canteen was warm, but it was water when I was so thirsty, and for that I was grateful. I looked up at my rescuer to see that he wore a sleeveless dark-blue sweater with a shoulder-guard harnessed onto his left shoulder, and that he had a longish face and blond hair that stuck out in all directions like ruffled feathers. His blue eyes glowed as brightly as the gleaming desert sky…and I knew right then that he was the Warrior of Cosmos I needed most.

_“Cloud!”_ I cried out with relief. Cloud Strife. He was the only one who could truly help me. “Thank—thank Cosmos it’s you, Cloud! I—I really need—really need you to help me…”

“Calm down, Luneth. I know you’re hurt and I’m here to help.” Cloud was shifting, using his body to block some of the blowing sand, and reaching into his pants-pocket to pull out a small green-tinted sphere. The relief that washed over me as Cloud touched the sphere to my chin where I had been cut told me that it was a device for casting healing spells. With painful effort I removed my right boot, indicating to Cloud that I needed him to heal my ankle too. “Luneth, what happened?” he asked. “Did you get lost or attacked, or something?”

“I was with Terra—on the Lunar Subterrane,” I began to explain. “We got attacked by a bunch of manikins—we beat most of them, but one of them hit Terra with a sleep spell and…” But then I choked on some sand and started coughing, making my injured left side hurt so bad that I couldn’t help curling up to try and make it hurt less. 

Vaguely I was aware of Cloud unbuckling my armor on the left side to get to the bruised area with his healing sphere, pulling me to sit up when he was done. “Okay, one of the manikins cast a sleep spell on Terra…then what happened?”

“Someone cast a Meteor spell and destroyed the last two manikins with it,” I went on, worried because Cloud seemed scared a bit by my explanation. “I tried to wake Terra up when the manikins were gone—but that’s when S…”

“You mean _Sephiroth_ attacked you?” Cloud cut me off all of a sudden, tightening his grip on my shoulder, not needing me to say Terra’s and my attacker’s name.

“And he’s kidnapped Terra!” I burst out, trying hard not to cry. But I was failing. “I tried to stand up to him—but he had that really big sword…” Now tears, rather than sand, blinded me and I felt like curling up and begging the desert to swallow me whole. I could never have fought an enemy with a sword that long…I didn’t stand a chance!

And because I didn’t stand a chance, Terra didn’t stand a chance either.

“Don’t cry, Luneth; none of this is your fault.” Cloud was talking to me in a calm voice again as he got up and pulled me to my feet. He was trying to soothe me, but I could tell he was afraid of what would happen to Terra. And why shouldn’t he be, if he’s had to fight Sephiroth before? But now he bent down to my eye level again and turned my face toward his with a leather-gloved hand. “Just listen to me, Luneth. No matter what it takes, we’ll find wherever it is that Sephiroth took Terra. We’ll rescue Terra, and if she’s injured, we’ll heal her. And then I’ll destroy Sephiroth for ever even _looking_ at you, or her—and nothing, not even Chaos himself, is going to stop me!”

“Not even Chaos himself!” I repeated—and now I even smiled through my tears. Cloud’s vow gave me the strength to fight again, and now I was sure. “Let’s go back to the Lunar Subterrane—it seems like the best place to start looking.”

Whatever happened, we couldn't let Terra down. We had to find her.


	5. I've never felt such mystic power!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking from a sleep spell that she suffered in battle, Terra finds herself trapped between a rock and a hard place, and she can only pray that she chooses the lesser of two evils.

**I’ve never felt such mystic power!** _(intro, Terra when fighting Shantotto)_

Warm…I felt so wonderfully warm, like I had been wrapped in a cocoon that had the pleasant smell of leather and dragon’s blood…

But that was impossible…the last thing I remembered, I was fighting a bunch of manikins…did one of them cast a sleep spell on me, or something?

Blearily, I propped myself up on an elbow as I opened my eyes—and my blood chilled as I found my worst fear confirmed. 

I wasn’t on the Lunar Subterrane anymore, and my young friend Luneth was nowhere to be found. Beside me instead sat a pale-skinned man who had a powerfully built physique, dressed in only a pair of black leather trousers. I saw that he also had a finely chiseled face with pointed features, framed by long hair that flowed like liquid silver. I forced myself to look away from the large, warm hand with which he now stroked my shoulder and back at his face—and one glance into his burning aqua eyes, with their gaze that seemed to penetrate my very soul, told me exactly who my captor was.

_Sephiroth._

“I wondered when my sleeping beauty would wake,” said he in a low, smooth voice with a smirk that unnerved me further. “Although I really was enjoying the sight of your wavy emerald hair strewn over the lining of my coat. Not many women have something so unusual that serves to enhance their beauty.”

I looked about me to see that he had indeed laid me down on his coat as I slept under the spell—and that he had removed my armlets, cape, boots, and stockings, the last having been torn and somewhat bloodied when Luneth and I fought all those manikins, so maybe he could have taken the stockings off in order to heal the cuts on my legs. But why had he taken my armlets and cape off—and why had he taken me away from Luneth in the first place?

Unless he meant to hand me over to Kefka. No, I couldn’t let that happen! Instantly I jerked away from him and tried to focus my energy into a good, strong Fire spell.

Sephiroth only chuckled at my action. “Now, now, lovely Terra,” he scolded, “surely you can see that I mean you no harm. Of those who serve Cosmos, you alone have nothing to fear from my sword.”

“I don’t believe you!” I burst out, angry now. “You’re a warrior of Chaos—you mean to hand me over to Kefka!”

Even as my words wiped the smirk off Sephiroth’s pointed face for a moment, however, he shifted to advance on me, now slowly, ever so slowly, stroking a hand down the length of my right arm and back up again—and the burning energy that I would have formed into a Fire spell now followed the path of his hand instead. It somehow warmed the blood in my veins that only moments ago had turned cold at the sight of such a dangerous foe.

No! This heat I felt as he touched me—it wasn’t natural. I should be ice when I’m this close to a man who serves Chaos, not fire!

“You accuse me of being in league with your enemy, Kefka Palazzo,” he spoke softly, not ceasing to caress my arm but now moving up to my shoulder. “Little do you know that nothing could be further from the truth—in fact, he grates deeply on my nerves. He irritates me so much that I want nothing more than to see that clown destroyed.”

Part of me—the part of my mind that knew I had to defeat Kefka, and my traitorous body that warmed to the touch of my captor’s hand—wanted to believe him. But I couldn’t fall for his tricks; I had to stand my ground! Yet even as I thought this, Sephiroth shifted to put the arm and hand that caressed my shoulder around my waist, now leaning in and bringing his other hand up to my face, and without my willing it, I leaned into the contact. “And if only you’re willing to let me,” he continued, pressing a light but fiery kiss to my right temple as he shifted even closer, “I can pour my power into you. I can give you just what you need to overpower such a foe.”

Every inch of Sephiroth’s body spoke of tightly-leashed strength; the Esper in my being could feel the power that he radiated from every pore. And now he was promising to pour that power into me—and the burning lust in his eyes, the way my body warmed from the touch of his as he now sealed his form to mine—both made the truth of his promise clear. I shuddered, wide-eyed, to feel the throb of his erection against my upper thigh through the leather of his trousers. But why did his touch set me on fire, causing this unnatural heat to bloom between my legs, when it should be turning my blood to ice?

“Will you let me help you, Terra?” he asked, his tone becoming even more provocative, if that were possible. “Will you accept the gift of my power?”

Cosmos help me, I knew it would be a sin to accept help—especially in this form—from a man who served Chaos, even if that man did hate Kefka as much as I. But what choice did I have? Surely if I resisted, Sephiroth would abandon his ploy for seduction and take me by force instead. As it was, though, if I agreed to his proposition, hopefully it would sate the unnatural heat in me. Then, once I’d faced and defeated Kefka as I knew I had to do, I would go to the Order’s Sanctuary and beg Cosmos to forgive my sin.

_Forgive me, Cosmos_ , I prayed, even as I caught Sephiroth’s gaze with my own and nodded my head yes, raising a hand to stroke his face like he did to me. But goodness knew I’d never be able to look Cloud in the face, knowing that this was how I gained the power to defeat Kefka…

Then he was kissing me—and I was lost. I seemed to remember being kissed before, but certainly not like this! Not by a man whose lips were thin-looking but sinfully soft, and tasted like something I couldn’t name, but which I couldn’t get enough of. I could barely think to kiss him back; all I could do was moan helplessly into the kiss as he deepened it, now sliding his tongue between my lips in a way that encouraged me to do the same to him.

His large, strong hand moved down my hip and along my thigh, until he started to guide my movements, now encouraging me to straddle him, never losing the contact of our lips. When we did rise and I straddled him, though, I broke the kiss on a sharp gasp as I felt the press of his hardness against hypersensitive nerves through my panties and his trousers. Undeterred by the loss of my lips, Sephiroth cradled my hips in his hands and started kissing my neck from my jaw line down to the hollow of my throat and back up to the other pulse point, trapping the sensitive flesh there between blunt teeth. He meant to mark me—and I couldn’t help but pray that no other warrior of Cosmos saw the mark.

But nor did I idly receive the attentions of the man seducing me. Almost beyond my control, my hands wandered, exploring smooth skin over the hard planes and angles of Sephiroth’s powerful physique: the strong arms that held me, his broad shoulders and back, his taut chest and upper abdomen, before I moved my hands back up and ran my fingers through his long, silky silver hair. Vaguely I was aware of my own hair coming loose from its ponytail; he must have untied the ribbon and laid it aside along with my armlets and stockings. Then—gods, if it felt this good for him when I ran my fingers through his hair, I can tell why he liked it so much.

He likewise continued his exploration of my petite figure, his hands finding the zipper on the left side of my dress and opening it inch by inch. I almost lost my nerve then—I had been about to push his hands away—but then he, having resumed kissing me all the while, broke the kiss gently in order to lean in toward my ear. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, now beginning to tug my dress upward, obliging me to raise my arms so that he could slide the dress over my head.

I hadn’t been wearing a bra under my tight strapless dress, and my nipples, already as hypersensitive as the rest of me, instantly pebbled into hard peaks at the forbidden feel of the air on my breasts. I turned my head away in embarrassment and brought an arm up to cover myself—only to feel Sephiroth take hold of my wrist and slowly lower my arm. “Don’t hide from me, my emerald beauty,” he gently chided, chuckling in apparent amusement at my modesty. “You’re far too lovely to have anything to hide.”

I felt my flush deepen as Sephiroth lingered for a moment, enjoying the sight of my nearly-naked body poised above his, before he started kissing my neck again. He was now moving down to my shoulders and upper chest, cradling my rib cage in his hands, brushing his thumbs over the undersides of my breasts, making me moan loudly as he slid back and trailed open-mouthed kisses down to my pounding heart.

Then, rather suddenly, he changed his mind about how he wanted to lavish my body in his kisses and touch, instead guiding me to lie down amid his coat again, now looming above me so that his silver hair spilled over us both, tickling my flushed skin. He continued to caress my breasts, first running his thumbs along the edges, then stroking with his long, strong fingers, and then he rubbed his palms over the puckered nipples. All the while he teased the sensitive skin of my shoulders and upper chest with kisses and the light brush of silver hair—until, without warning, he fastened his lips around one nipple and began to suck the tender flesh deep into his hot mouth. I cried out indistinctly, in a voice I barely recognized as my own, at the feel of his tongue against me, and of their own accord, my hands slid away from his muscular back to fist in the ends of his hair.

But even as he relinquished the one breast in order to give the same attentions to the other, I felt one of his hands slide lower, over my stomach, tickling the sensitive skin on my hipbones as his fingers dipped beneath the waistband of my panties. As I felt the tug that indicated his intent to slide the panties off, I froze with fear again—but Sephiroth moved himself up again, kissing the side of my face, soothing me with murmured nothings, and eventually I gave in, raising my hips slightly so that he could slip my panties off and lay them on the same pile as the rest of my clothes. Still shy, however, I kept my thighs tightly together, not wanting him to see how aroused his caresses were making me.

“Beautiful,” Sephiroth murmured, stroking a hand up the outside of my right leg and smiling in satisfaction to see the nest of green curls at the juncture of my thighs. “So very beautiful.” And in spite of being embarrassed by my nakedness, I found myself smiling at his compliments.

He was stroking both my thighs now, from the soft spots at the backs of my knees to both sensitive hipbones and back down again, up and down, gradually moving inward to my most secret of places, where all the heated pleasure in me seemed to be pooling. I couldn’t help but shiver, but whether in anticipation or fear, I didn’t know. Gods, if the feel of his hot mouth on my breasts had been so intensely pleasurable, what would he be able to do if I let him explore my womanhood as well?

He didn’t make me wait long to find out; without my willing it, my thighs began to open to his touch as his hands stroked inward. At the first touch of his fingers to my sensitive folds, I cried out in pleasure and bucked against his hand in spite of all my efforts to be still. It was too much for me—I had to tell him to stop. But before I could utter a word, Sephiroth leaned in and captured a breast with his mouth again, massaging the other with his free hand, and tracing his fingers over my womanhood, unerringly finding the swollen nub—reducing any words I might have said to cries and keening whimpers. Soon afterward, I gasped even louder as he pressed his thumb to my swollen clit and slid two strong fingers into my slippery heat—finding a sensitive spot inside of me that I hadn’t even known existed! Gods, how did he know just how to reduce me to a writhing, moaning bundle of nerves?

The pleasure I felt at his touch, at the way his fingers began to stretch me, was building—higher and higher—until I felt it burst amid my loins and sweep through me like a fiery wave, leaving me gasping for breath.

When I was able to pull myself up, I saw that the ever-present glow in Sephiroth’s eyes seemed to burn brighter, his lust only deepened by my coming undone under his far-too-skilled hand, and beneath it, an obvious pride at having pleasured me so intensely. The expression in those pools of aqua shifted, however, telling me that what he had done so far was not all that he intended—and the way his hands now moved to the button on his trousers proved the truth of his unspoken promise. With great effort, I forced my eyes not to stray any lower than his shoulders, but I could still see his hands in my peripheral vision, lowering the zipper inch by inch before removing the trousers from his muscular legs and setting them aside near some discarded belts and armor pieces.

One glance at his cock, though, and I lost my nerve again, squeezing my eyes shut in fear. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at how well-endowed he was, given the aura of sheer _power_ I could feel emanating from him…but how could he think that something that massive could come close to fitting inside of me?

My eyes snapped open again, however, as Sephiroth took hold of one of my hands, lifting it up to press a kiss into my palm. I tried to force myself to look only at his face, but my eyes couldn’t help but follow the downward path along which he guided my small hand slowly, ever so slowly, until my fingertips met heated, throbbing flesh.

“Touch me, Terra,” he bade me. “Show me that you’re not afraid.”

I should have jerked my hand away—I should’ve protested that I really was terrified—I should‘ve done anything _but_ trace my fingers along his hard, smooth length like he wanted me to. But I did touch him, first with one finger, then with four, looking up to watch his eyes drift shut and hearing his pleasured groans as I ran my hand from base to tip and back down into the surrounding nest of silver curls.

After a minute or so he finally clasped my hand again to remove it from his body, and I swallowed as I realized that now, at last, he really did intend to take me. I was surprised, however, when, once he’d guided me back down into the bed of his coat, he shifted lower and started teasing my skin with the light brush of his silver hair again. He moved over my stomach and sides, then lower, making me shudder as he kissed each sensitive hipbone and coaxed my legs apart again. “But you’re not…” I began to question, but trailed off, confused.

“Not yet, my emerald beauty,” he answered, voice thick with suggestion, looking up at me with a seductive smirk. “Not until I’ve tasted you.”

_Cosmos help me_ , I thought with a groan, as my hips bucked at his promise. Gods, if Sephiroth could bring me to a shattering climax so easily using his fingers, surely I would die of too much pleasure if he tried to use his mouth on me! He had only crawled down and started kissing my thighs—down the left one, up the right—and I was already moaning wantonly, my hands searching for something to hold on to, eventually finding purchase in the edges of his coat.

And not a moment too soon. _Oh, gods!_ Sephiroth’s lips were like flame against my hypersensitive flesh. But if I thought the pleasure I felt when he kissed me there was too intense, it was nothing compared to the fiery brand of his tongue in my most heated of places—and he was moaning now as he licked fire along my swollen folds, the vibrations only inflaming me further. And the way I bucked my hips against his face involuntarily only seemed to encourage him; his ministrations grew more intense as his tongue came closer to my clit with each vigorous stroke—and then I felt him close his lips around the sensitive nub and suck hard. Then one more dash of his tongue and I was lost again, screaming myself breathless and wildly writhing.

I was barely aware of Sephiroth moving up my body again, save for the kisses he stole on his way up and the way his long hair kept tickling my body as he moved—until he captured my lips with his own, slipping his tongue in to duel with my own. Even as I moaned into the kiss when I tasted the odd salty flavor of my own essence on his lips and tongue, I felt the heat of his cock prodding at my entrance. I swallowed nervously again and quivered at the feeling. This was it. I slid my hands away from his face and gripped his shoulders, bracing myself.

Still kissing me deeply, he took hold of my hips and began to enter me, not pausing until he was in me hilt-deep. My eyes widened bigger than ever at his size. Pressure and heat were all I could feel—he was stretching me to nearly bursting, and the friction overwhelmed me. I felt him guide my thighs as he pressed inside me, encouraging me to wrap my legs around him, the angle enabling him to penetrate even deeper than if I had let them lie.

Then he stilled, breaking the kiss to hold my gaze with his, sliding his hands back up to cradle my rib cage and caress my breasts with his thumbs. “So how does it feel?”

“That wasn’t as bad as I feared,” I admitted once I could speak again, smiling meekly up at him. I had expected it to hurt when he entered me, but maybe my Esper genes made it so that I wouldn’t feel any pain.

Sephiroth chuckled lightly at my admission. “I told you that you had nothing to fear,” he answered with a smile, kissing me again, shifting to seal every possible inch of his body to mine as he began to move inside me. 

He might have been patient and slow as he initially entered me, but now his thrusts were hard and deep. Harder. Faster. I couldn’t get the air into my lungs fast enough—I was crying out in delight again as every powerful thrust hit something in me that blinded me with pleasure—I tried to match his movement, but I could do nothing but bury my face in the crook of his neck and hold onto him with the strength of all four of my limbs.

I could hardly believe it, but the feeling of ecstasy was building in my loins again—he kept going, faster—harder—it was burning—burning—

_—Burning me up!_

I don’t know whether my release triggered his or the other way around. All I knew was the powerful inferno that swept every inch of my being as his entire, magnificent form trembled with the strength of the explosion, the flood of liquid heat that filled my insides, the sounds of both our raptured cries filling my ears.

Then I felt myself drowning in all-consuming darkness.


	6. I've never heard a sadder laugh...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Firion catches sight of Kefka, who is up to no good, as usual. What he isn't prepared for, however, is the state in which he discovers Terra.

**I’ve never heard a sadder laugh…** _(intro, Firion when fighting Kefka)_

It wasn’t long at all after I’d parted ways with Tidus and begun searching the World of Darkness for my crystal when I saw a brilliant flash of light—an occurrence that was almost certainly out-of-place in such a world-shard as was called the “World of Darkness.” And drifting from the general direction of the flash, the unmistakable sound of evil laughter. I knew not the exact nature of what had just happened, only that I had to identify which of Chaos’s warriors was responsible, and make that one pay for whatever he had done. Retrieving an arrow to fit it to my bow, I prepared to quickly shoot as I silently crept around a cluster of tall stone pillars.

And there I saw him in the eerie glow of arcs of magical energy—the flashily dressed insane clown, laughing fit to burst. Kefka Palazzo, the destroyer, gloating over what appeared to be a smoldering pile of rubble about thirty yards away. Ten seconds of just hearing his laughter and he already made my blood boil—enough! I fired a shot at him.

Damn! All I’d managed to do was draw his attention as my arrow did nothing more than pierce two holes in his billowing sleeve. “And what have we here, I wonder?” he taunted, leaping off to my left as I trained another arrow on him. “A knight in shining armor? Or is he just a coward who attacks when his foe’s back is turned?”

I shot at Kefka a second time, not bothering to taunt him back. At first it looked like another near miss, but Kefka cried out as he reeled in pain, telling me that I had at least grazed him. “You’ll pay for that!” he snarled as he gathered magical energy in his hands. “Zappo!”

Kefka’s thunder-spell missed me by a yard, and I countered with a Thunder of my own. Fire for fire, blizzard for blizzard, I engaged Kefka in battle—sometimes I would throw a hand-axe at the clown only to miss, or he would hurl an ice-ball at me and I would catch the blow on my shield. One of us would occasionally graze the other with a fireball that singed where it narrowly missed, or with an arrow or hand-axe. Hell, Kefka had even taken to throwing pieces of crumbled stone at me, some of which I caught and threw back in his direction. Up and down, back and forth, left and right, this way and that way—it seemed for ages that we both could dodge whatever the other one threw, but neither of us would ever get close enough to strike.

Then it seemed as though Kefka had disappeared for a moment, but I could still hear the maniacal laughter that made me bristle with anger. Drawing my sword, I glanced around me—then I saw him, all the way to a lonely pillar about a hundred yards away from the rubble-pile he’d been initially gloating over. But his back was to me again, and I began to silently creep upon him, waiting for the perfect moment to strike—

_“Don’t mess with me!”_

I hadn’t even seen it coming. A great pair of powerful magic wings slammed into me with a tremendous force, throwing me to where I landed flat on my back several feet behind the point of impact. Only when I scrambled to my feet again did I realize something was amiss…

“Lookin’ for something?” Kefka taunted. I turned around, in the direction of his harsh cackling voice—and saw that he was holding up my wild rose, the one I carried on me always to remind me of the dream I fight for, and began to bend the stem around a claw-nailed finger. “Keep fightin’ me and y’might get your pretty posy back—but you’re far too late to save the Red Rose of Mobliz!”

And in another flash of light, Kefka was gone without a trace.

Confusion warred with my shock and disbelief. Red Rose of Mobliz? What—or who—could he possibly be referring—

And then it hit me, the moment my eyes fell on the rubble-pile again.

_Terra!_

She must be lying somewhere in that pile of rubble, grievously wounded—Kefka must have sneak-attacked her. _That_ had to be the reason why I could hear his hateful laugh a mile away.

Sheathing my sword, I sprinted in the direction of the rubble-pile, the origin of the flash of light that first drew my attention to Kefka. I reached the edge of the pile, frantically shoving large pieces of broken pillars and other rock aside, casting smaller rocks behind me in a desperate search for a wounded Warrior of Cosmos.

Then I came to what appeared to be the epicenter of Kefka’s magic blast—and what I saw, as I shoved aside the umpteenth large section of a pillar, made my blood run cold.

My eyes followed the loose wild waves of Terra’s distinctive green hair to find her frail body, naked (except for her jewelry) and unconscious and with reddened burned skin—blistered in a few places, even—beneath the powerful physique of a silver-haired man in the exact same state of undress, unconsciousness, and injury all at once. By my reckoning, the silver-haired man whose body lay atop Terra’s must have been Sephiroth—the other man with silver hair among Chaos’s warriors, Kuja, couldn’t be nearly so well-built.

_How in the hell did this happen? ___

But that wasn’t important right now. What mattered now was that I needed to somehow carry Terra to the Order’s Sanctuary for Cosmos to heal her, as she was clearly beyond my skill to heal with my limited supply of healing potions. I wrenched Sephiroth’s arm out from where it was wrapped around Terra’s back and shoved him off of her, trying hard to ignore the truly obscene sucking sound that came from where their bodies had been joined. "See if Cloud shows you any mercy!" I angrily snarled at Sephiroth before trying to lift Terra up.

__But now how was I supposed to heal some of Terra’s burns before I tried to cover her nakedness up in a combination of her cape and mine and begin carrying her? Should I try to pour one of my healing potions down her throat, or attempt to rub one or two of them into her shoulders and upper back? I eventually settled for the latter, but the potions were weak at best—the blistering went down where I rubbed the potions in, but the skin remained an angry shade of red. Maybe I could try again later, but for now, there was nothing for it. Gathering all of Terra’s personal effects from the small pile where they lay, I gently tied her cape up around her hips and buttocks before I removed my own cape to wrap it around her upper torso. That being done, I lifted her into my arms as gently as I could and began to carry her, in something resembling bridal-style, the long way toward the Order’s Sanctuary._ _

__As I made the long and painful way toward the safety of Cosmos’s domain, hoping against hope that I could elude the sight of the manikins that serve Chaos (as well as more formidable enemies), a thousand questions burned my mind and left me no rest. What the hell kind of manipulation had Sephiroth used on Terra? She had to be under manipulation—no woman would have willingly lain with any man who served Chaos. But the way her limbs were wrapped around him…the utter lack of blood between Terra’s legs as I shoved Sephiroth off of her…both were signs that she’d been seduced, instead of raped. Was that why Kefka saw fit to blast them both with that powerful magic-blast?_ _

__Maybe Kefka was using one of them as a distraction for the other—maybe he was using Sephiroth as a distraction for Terra, and Sephiroth just wound up being collateral damage as a result of the blast. Or was it the other way around—Sephiroth was Kefka’s target, and that clown was using Terra as a distraction…_ _

__Or what if Terra had been acting of her own will and was trying to distract Sephiroth in order for…no, it couldn’t be. Definitely not. Nobody else who served Cosmos would consent to Terra creating a diversion of that nature, especially not Cloud or myself—and that’s assuming Terra actually had the nerve to do such a thing. And I doubted she would ever strike anyone as being that kind of girl…_ _

__Gods damn it! This situation wasn’t helping. I needed for Terra to be coherent—that way, if I questioned her, she could at least tell me what she remembered, so that I just might be able to tell what evil influence she’d fallen under. But that wouldn’t happen at least until I managed to bring her to the Order’s Sanctuary for Cosmos to heal her._ _

__And I, too, needed to look to Cosmos for guidance as to how to deal with Terra when she was conscious and coherent. Unless she, the harmony-goddess, told me that Terra was guilty of sin, I would give my wounded ally the benefit of the doubt—innocent unless Cosmos says she’s guilty._ _

__Cosmos help Terra, and Cosmos help me help Terra. Cosmos help us all._ _


	7. Here I come!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sensing a disturbance in the World of Darkness, Chaos dispatches Garland and the Cloud of Darkness to investigate it. When he discovers the cause of the disturbance, Garland knows at once that there will be hell to pay.

**Here I come!** _(attack; Garland dashing)_

As usual, I had, of course, been on the roof doing battle with various manikins when Chaos called me to the throne room. When I arrived, the Cloud of Darkness was also present, hovering in the air as she awaited orders from the God of Discord.

“There has been a disturbance,” Chaos explained without preamble, seeming to speak more to the Cloud of Darkness than to me. “I have sensed a reverberation of powerful magic in the World of Darkness. As that region is your domain, you must investigate the disturbance at once.” Then, turning to me, the god ordered, “Garland, you are to accompany her. The two of you will be joined by a contingent of Counterfeit Wraiths, just in case the need arises for reinforcements.”

“As you wish,” I answered with a formal bow.

“We shall report when we return,” the Cloud of Darkness added, one of her tentacle-serpents hissing in agreement. Immediately, then, we turned to make our way toward the source of the disturbance.

The World of Darkness lay a great distance from the Old Chaos Shrine; we had to pass through both Pandaemonium and the Crystal World before we reached our destination. No sooner had we passed into Pandaemonium than the Cloud of Darkness melted into a shadowy pool and began to flit on ahead of me. “Stop there!” I ordered. She glared contemptuously at me as she returned to her usual form.

Not that I was unable to tolerate her moving ahead of me for any reason, but—“If a warrior of Cosmos is responsible for the disturbance, we need to ambush the perpetrator! I won’t have you, or the manikins, alerting those who serve Cosmos to our presence—not until we’re sure to have them outnumbered!”

“Fine,” she huffed in irritation, falling back to float abreast of me. Passage through Pandaemonium and the Crystal World went without incident, our presence scattering the manikins that knew, on some level, that I would just as easily destroy them as call them to aid my allies and myself.

Finally we reached the World of Darkness—but the disturbance had to be further below, as there were no signs that anything was amiss. I jumped down several feet as the Cloud of Darkness floated down nearby, along with the manikin entourage, and we continued exploring in search of even the slightest sign of the disturbance of which Chaos had spoken. Nothing so far.

After nearly two hours of searching, starting high and moving lower as we went, the Cloud of Darkness waved me over toward what she saw. “There,” she intoned, pointing. Following the direction of her pointed finger, I saw that it had formerly been a cluster of pillars, but was now a great pile of rubble. “It must be where the ‘powerful magic’ of which the discord-god spoke happened.”

So we finally had our lead. That was good—and if we saw anybody who served Cosmos there, that warrior would be made to pay, mark my words!

We had been far away when the Cloud of Darkness first pointed out the origin of the disturbance, unable to discern more than a pile of rubble. Now several minutes later and closer, however, there was movement—it was somebody in dark-blue furiously beating on a patchy-looking pale figure with fists and feet—

_That had better NOT be who and what I thought it was!_

This powerful “disturbance” of which Chaos had spoken, I broke into a run the moment I’d realized, was a magic-blast that had injured Sephiroth to the point of incapacitation. And now, to make matters even worse, the Cosmos-serving warrior Cloud Strife had gotten to his unconscious enemy before the Cloud of Darkness and I arrived on the scene, and would pound Sephiroth to his very death if we didn’t stop him—

I howled in fury when something stopped me with a grab to my sword-arm, and demanded explanation when I saw that the Cloud of Darkness had snaked a tentacle around that arm: “What the hell are you—?!”

“We’ll distract that one better if we go after the onlooker first,” she told me in an all-too-calm tone, pointing to a figure in light blue about sixty yards further away from the pile of rubble. That figure was the young Luneth, whelp that he was, apparently staying back from the rubble-pile at Strife’s bidding.

“Fine!” I spat. I turned to give orders to the manikins that followed us: “Once we distract those two fools who serve Cosmos, get the injured man out of that rubble and back to the Old Chaos Shrine as fast as possible. And don’t forget his personal effects!”

My earlier scream of indignation when the Cloud of Darkness first restrained me hadn’t reached Strife’s ears, but sure enough, Luneth’s cry for help when he saw that he was outnumbered did cut through the blond man’s rage. And draw his sword to enter the fray Strife did—not, however, before inflicting one last blow with a heavy-booted foot on a part of Sephiroth’s anatomy that made even me wince in sympathy.

Under other circumstances, I might have thoroughly delighted in the clash and clatter of blade hitting blade, might have enjoyed taunting Strife as I dodged his spells and lunging sword-thrusts, laughing at his anger. Certainly I could’ve kept my spiky-headed opponent busy for ages if I wanted, standing down only when Sephiroth bade me. As it was, though, my need to divert Strife, and the Cloud of Darkness’s need to distract the boy Luneth, was precisely so that the Counterfeit Wraiths could bring the silver-haired man, wounded as he was, back to the Old Chaos Shrine for the God of Discord to heal him back to full strength.

As such, I did not cease to trade blows with the blond man until long after I saw the manikins float up toward the darkened sky with the incapacitated Sephiroth safely in their carriage—it was at the bidding of the Cloud of Darkness, who appeared to have taken a real beating from her fight with Luneth, that I abandoned Strife and fell back. “Our work is done here,” stated the Cloud of Darkness; “we must go back to Chaos and report.”

“Get back here and fight, you despicable cowards!” I heard Strife shout after me, but inwardly I was laughing. Just how much angrier would it make him to realize that we had robbed him of the chance to finish his hated enemy off once and for all?

As we warriors who serve Chaos came closer to the Shrine, however, my laughter died down, and for good reason. The God of Discord would be seriously displeased with this turn of events, and would likely start a rank-wide dragnet to discover the cause of Sephiroth’s wounded condition when he found me unable to account for all of the details.


	8. I'd better take this one seriously.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zidane Tribal passes through the Order's Sanctuary, where he finds Terra grievously wounded. Hikari then recruits Zidane and sends him on a mission that only a master-thief can accomplish. But will it be enough to help Terra, or is Ultimecia just manipulating Zidane when she taunts him?

**I’d better take this one seriously.** _(intro, Zidane when fighting Sephiroth)_

_“The Master-Thief. It was good of you to show up here, Zidane, because you’re just the one we need right now.”_

I’d gone to the Order’s Sanctuary hoping that that was where I would meet Bartz, after we had gotten separated. No luck there—but I was rather frightened when I saw Firion and Hikari hovering over the prone figure of someone who’d been hurt and was lying on the wide flat throne-like altar. I broke into a run to meet them, dreading that the wounded Warrior of Cosmos would be Bartz.

But it wasn’t Bartz. It was Terra. She was unconscious, and most of her body was covered in Firion’s cape, but I did see that one side of her delicate face, as well as some other exposed skin, was red and blotchy with burns despite several efforts by Hikari and Firion to heal Terra of her injuries.

Firion really didn’t want to tell me any more than necessary about Terra’s condition and how she came to be injured. All he said was that according to Cosmos herself, Terra had fallen under the evil influence of a potion, one of the sorceress Ultimecia’s creations, and that the evil clown Kefka had ambushed Terra when the poor girl was at her most vulnerable—the light of Kefka’s magic-blast had drawn Firion’s attention to Terra’s predicament.

_“Seeing Terra here in this state, knowing that the only woman among us now needs all of us on her side, will you help us?”_

That was what Hikari asked of me, and I agreed to take on the task. My mission, as Master-Thief among Cosmos’s chosen, was to infiltrate Ultimecia’s domain and to steal a book of potion recipes that I would find somewhere within. Hikari and Firion hoped that the recipe book would contain the name and recipe of the potion whose influence Terra was under at the time of Kefka’s attack, and better still (hopefully), an antidote to the same if Terra was still under the influence when she awoke.

Unfortunately, I didn’t expect Ultimecia’s castle to be quite so far from the Order’s Sanctuary. So far I had passed through Dream’s End and the Rift, and was currently stuck at the Planet’s Core fighting an unusually high number of Tidus-shaped manikins—good gods, those things were almost too fast even for me! Damn, but I was glad I could at least see who I was fighting; I’d sure have a lot more trouble here if they were the green Cloud-of-Darkness-shaped manikins.

Finally! The portal at the far edge of the Planet’s Core did, at last, land me in the bottom part of Ultimecia’s castle once I’d beaten the Emperor-shaped manikin that guarded it. Now all I needed to do was find where the wicked old witch would keep a book of potion recipes.

Easier said than done, though—I should’ve known better than to believe that it would be easy even after I got into the world-shard I needed to be in. The lower parts of the castle were swarming with manikins. What struck me as even more bitterly ironic was the fact that most of the manikins were in Squall’s shape, of all forms! Geez, you’d think that since I’ve got to oppose Ultimecia in some way, Squall would rather help me than hinder me…

“Well well well,” sang an unpleasant feminine voice when I had gotten several feet up and managed to throw a Cecil-shaped manikin into a set of grinding gears that destroyed it. Looking up, I saw that Ultimecia herself descended from above, standing some distance up a spiral staircase. “Hickory dickory dock, a mouse runs up my clock…” Even as she sang the rhyme, I saw sharp javelins of ice forming in the air around her—then launching themselves at me, quite suddenly and without warning.

“Too slow!” I laughed as I dodged the icy shards, taunting her in spite of the chill in my stomach brought on by her mere presence. Drawing my twin swords, I lunged at her, but she merely flew away to stand on a platform above another set of gears.

“I know why I now find a thief in my domain, one who fancies himself a master-thief,” my opponent now addressed me, a throaty chuckle accompanying her smirk as she paced lazily back and forth. “A certain sense of chivalry, a desire to help a wounded Esper maiden.” She must have heard my involuntary gasp at these words, because her smirk widened like that of a coeurl. “But your efforts are all in vain, Zidane. There is no running from this pain. The seed of Chaos will take root, no matter what you do to try and prevent it—but why am I even telling you this,” Ultimecia laughed, “when you won’t be returning to your little Sanctuary to pass my word on?”

The spell that hit me at the end of the witch’s speech engulfed me with the force of a meteor, even more suddenly than her ice-barrage. Burning heat and blinding light at once robbed me of my ability to move—paralyzed but for my scream of pain, I teetered over the edge and fell like a rock, crumpling on another part of the staircase several feet below.

Almost as suddenly as I’d fallen, however, a pair of hands yanked me to my feet again—and I followed the hands to find a blessedly familiar black-clothed form and gray-eyed scarred face—

“Squall,” I panted, wincing in pain from a bruise on my shoulder. “Your timing couldn’t be better…”

“What are you doing here?” Squall demanded to know, before he reconsidered—“Scratch that, it doesn’t matter. Just get out of here, and let _me_ deal with the witch.”

Ultimecia laughed when she overheard Squall’s words and the _swoosh_ of the black-clad man swinging his gunblade. “So the loner does care about his allies after all,” she remarked with amused contempt. “Very well, I suppose I’ll deal with the lion first, and then be after the mouse.”

This statement was all that Squall had to hear before he lunged at Ultimecia, who flew off to the side even as she launched spellfire at the gunbladist. Seizing my chance while Squall fought Ultimecia, I wedged a piece of rock into some grinding gears to stop their motion so that I could climb them.

I kept climbing as the sounds of battle raged below, determined to find where the witch would keep her potion book. Higher and higher I went, eventually losing the sounds of the fight below, but still not finding any sign of a room, somewhere where Ultimecia would be likely to work in secret. Come on, where the heck was what I looked for?

Finally, at the very top, there was a door, and I saw that it led into what must be the sorceress’s bedroom once I quickly ducked inside. I had to hurry and find this recipe-book; I didn’t know how much longer Squall would be able to keep Ultimecia busy. Would it be in the bedside cabinet, or that tall drawer-chest with the fancy clock? I tried the bedside cabinet—no recipe book in there; only two round bottles of some red potion, a small rectangular bottle of a clear liquid, and an assortment of mismatched satin-covered boxes. Better try the drawer-chest next; I didn’t think I wanted to know what she keeps in any of those boxes.

Cauldrons of varying metals in the bottom drawer, random jars of potion ingredients and wooden spoons and stirring rods in the drawer above it—aha! It was in the third drawer up: _100 Potions for the Grand Sorceress._ The book seemed awfully small for so many potion recipes, but that didn’t matter—it had to be the book Hikari and Firion needed in order to help Terra. Tying the book to the inside of my belt with some silk cord I found on the nightstand, I left the room in all haste and started climbing back down. Amazingly, Squall and Ultimecia were still fighting by the time I had gotten out of the witch’s castle and through the portal to the Planet’s Core.

I was all the way back to Dream’s End—almost back in the safety of the Order’s Sanctuary—when, somehow, fighting an Ultimecia-shaped manikin, in spite of my defeating it, brought back the chill in my stomach that I’d felt at her words. _“A desire to help a wounded Esper maiden…but your efforts are all in vain, Zidane. There is no running from this pain. The seed of Chaos will take root, no matter what you do to try and prevent it…”_  
 _The seed of Chaos will take root…_ I knew that in some contexts, the word “seed” was another term for semen. Did what Ultimecia said mean…oh, gods, I hope it didn’t!

I broke into a run towards the portal that would lead back to the Order’s sanctuary, as though attempting to flee in white-faced fear at the knowledge. If what the witch said was true, it must mean that Terra had been raped—either by Kefka, or, even worse, by Chaos himself!—and Hikari recruiting me to steal a potion book meant that Terra needed some kind of emergency birth-control, or something truly apocalyptic would happen—I should’ve known! _That_ was why Firion was so reluctant to tell me about how Terra had come to be as badly hurt as she was in the first place—

_Hold on, Terra,_ I thought fervently as I plunged through the portal. Whatever I had to do to heal her as best I could, I would do it. No woman deserved to be made to suffer the way she was.


	9. Something go awry?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The situation has struck home at the Old Chaos Shrine, and the severely-displeased God of Discord demands answers.

**Something go awry?** _(victory, Emperor Mateus vs. weaker opponent)_

It was with great irritation that I left my domain of Pandaemonium, at the bidding of Chaos, and made my path to the discord-god’s throne room at the Old Chaos Shrine as requested. Once I had toyed with the young Cosmos-serving athlete Tidus for a time, I had retired to my own domain in wait for the sorceress Ultimecia (a woman whom I find both attractive and highly engaging) to either appear before me or extend an invitation to her domain. So far, however, neither of these things occurred according to plan. Perhaps, I thought with resignation, if I answered the call of the God of Discord, I would meet Ultimecia there and at least find out what detained her, once Chaos was finished with what it was that served as motive to call a meeting at the throne room. “What is going on?” I at last demanded to know of the boorish athlete Jecht, father of young Tidus, when I saw that his arrival in the throne room had preceded mine.

“Our reigning lord and master’s pissed off, that’s for damn sure,” the gruff bearded man answered, casting wary, annoyed glances in the direction of the hall that led to the warriors’ quarters. “I’m guessin’ it has everything to do with what happened when the wraith and the tin-head came back from patrol.”

Jecht’s descriptors of “wraith” and “tin-head” referred respectively to one Cloud of Darkness (a destroyer for whom I cared not) and one Garland (an unwaveringly loyal henchman to the God of Discord), the former of which now silently hovered on the end of the throne room farthest from Chaos’s throne. Ignoring her, I interrogated Jecht further: “What do you mean?”

“Well, the manikins Chaos sent with ‘em got back first—some Cloud-o’-Darkness-shaped ones, and I saw ‘em carry Sephiroth unconscious into the quarters,” Jecht began to explain. “The guy was naked—one of the manikins had a bundle that must’ve been all his personal effects—and he looked like he’d been run through a big ol’ machina crusher! And whoever pounded the shit outta him obviously wanted to make sure his balls got the worst…”

Grave news indeed. The nature and extent of Sephiroth’s injuries would almost certainly require the direct attention of Chaos himself in order for the swordsman to make a complete recovery. If that was the case, then the discord-god’s act of calling all his chosen to the throne room could only mean that he was highly suspicious of how one among us could have come to be so injured. “Is the God of Discord now attending to the injured man or questioning his right-hand warrior for an account of what has transpired, or else a combination thereof?” I further inquired.

“Far as I know, yeah,” Jecht grunted.

Soon the flapping of feathered wings told me that Ultimecia had just entered the throne room via the main entrance. She looked like she had been in a battle: torn robes, ruffled wing-feathers, grazes upon several areas of exposed skin, and disheveled hair. “What is the meaning of this summons?” she demanded in a terse, angry tone.

Before Jecht could answer, I took it upon myself to explain: “Sephiroth has been wounded to incapacitation, and Chaos is highly suspicious of the condition in which Garland and the Cloud of Darkness found him. As such, the God of Discord will doubtless be demanding answers as to how he came to be in that condition.”

“I saw a group o’ manikins carry him in,” Jecht added. “Looked really serious, and I figure that’s why the discord-god’s as pissed off as he is.”

Ultimecia said nothing. I knew, however, that she was impatient to be done with Chaos’s interrogation so that she could clean herself of the dust of battle.

It struck me as suspicious, however, that four people among Chaos’s chosen warriors were still absent from the throne room by the time the God of Discord seated himself on his throne and Garland took his favored position two yards forward and to Chaos’s right. The thaumaturge Golbez, the armored walking-tree-warrior Exdeath, the flashily dressed clown-mage Kefka Palazzo, and the silver-haired wizard Kuja all had not yet reported. The God of Discord quickly noticed this. “Where are those who are not currently among this assembly?” he demanded in a low voice that spoke of ill-suppressed anger.

None of us answered; everybody among those who were present already knew the reason for the summons. Golbez, Exdeath, Kefka, and Kuja failed to report to the throne room at their own risk, as their failure to report cast the immediate suspicion that one or more of them was responsible for the incapacitated state in which Sephiroth had been found.

“I am sure that all of you understand the reason for this summons, but in case any of you do not know, I will explain,” Chaos continued. “When I sensed a disturbance in the World of Darkness, I dispatched Garland and the Cloud of Darkness to investigate the disturbance at once. Less than an hour ago, these two returned in the wake of the contingent of Counterfeit Wraiths that I had sent along with them. The manner of their return informed me that Sephiroth, who currently lies in injury recovery in his quarters-room, had been wounded to the point of incapacitation by a powerful magic blast. An account by Garland then revealed to me that the Cosmos-serving warrior Cloud Strife had subsequently reached Sephiroth between the time of the initial disturbance and my patrol’s arrival on the scene, and that Strife had proceeded to inflict a series of heavy blows upon every part of his enemy’s body that had survived the magic blast without injury.”

“Shoulda known Chocobo-head was involved,” Jecht said aloud, seeming to speak more to himself than to Chaos or anyone else in the room. “Who else in the universe hates Sephiroth enough to pound the shit outta him when ‘e’s knocked out and already hurt?”

Chaos seemed to consider Jecht’s statement for a moment. “Your suggestion has some merit, Jecht,” he replied at last. “However, it is, for all points and purposes, irrelevant to the matter at hand. Sephiroth will recover from his injuries in due time, and then he will deal with Cloud Strife as he sees fit for such spiteful cowardice. What matters to me now, all of you, is this: who in this piecemeal world is responsible for using magical power to incapacitate Sephiroth, placing him in a vulnerable position by such means, in the first place?”

The aura of energy around the God of Discord flared with his anger as he finished this speech, and his gaze swept suspiciously over each of us, giving me the unpleasant sensation of being looked through as those calculating eyes fell upon me. In truth, I had nothing against Sephiroth for which I felt compelled to attack him, and I felt certain that he had no plans that would entail doing me any harm. His plans seemed centered primarily around antagonizing his own enemy, Cloud Strife, for reasons unknown to any but himself. Apparently satisfied as to the neutrality of my thoughts and feelings with regards to Sephiroth, Chaos moved on to survey Jecht in a similar manner.

Jecht passed Chaos’s mental inspection, and I expected him to ignore Garland and the Cloud of Darkness, as both had the virtue of being in the Old Chaos Shrine at the time of the disturbance. Finally I saw Chaos surveying Ultimecia. “Unaware until now that a disturbance had taken place,” he observed aloud while the sorceress schooled her facial expression to appear no more than mildly annoyed. “No memory at all to coincide with the time of the disturbance, indicating that you must have been taking a nap, of all activities, during that time.” This knowledge seemed to perplex the god a trifle. “You did, however, have dealings with Sephiroth fairly recently. Tell me the nature of those dealings,” he ordered at last.

“I was brewing a potion at the time that Sephiroth paid me a visit,” Ultimecia explained in a neutral manner. “He asked a small favor of me, and I felt disposed to oblige him. When he took his leave of me, it was the last that I saw of him.”

“I see.” Chaos continued, considering the sorceress. “And I understand that this question may or may not seem relevant to you as pertains to this interrogation, Ultimecia, but the name of the Cosmos-serving warrior Terra Branford cropped up in your conversation with Sephiroth. What is the reason for this?”

At this question, I observed, Ultimecia lost some of her neutrality of manner. “Must I answer before this gathering?” she demanded in indignation. “Not that I wouldn’t care to answer in a private interrogation room, Your Lordship, but I think that Sephiroth would be highly displeased with me if I aired the substance of a private conversation before all our fellow soldiers of Discord.”

Ultimecia’s answer appeared to rather offend the god, as she tried to wipe a smear of battle-blood from her shoulder where the robe over it was torn but found herself paralyzed when Chaos fixed her with his stare. “You _will_ answer before this gathering, sorceress,” the god addressed her in a low and deadly tone, “as Sephiroth’s displeasure, whether you fear or merely disfavor it, is as nothing to mine. Furthermore, only half of the gathering of my soldiers is here in this throne room, but even if all were present, we all of us are adults and can deal appropriately with adult situations if you must speak of them. I demand an eye for an eye on behalf of one of mine who has been wrongly harmed, Ultimecia. Know that any information you withhold, no matter how inconsequential it may seem, angers me because it delays that justice. Now tell me what role Terra Branford plays in this grand scheme.

“Very well,” Ultimecia hissed with a contemptuous glare. “The potion that I brewed is intended to induce lust in one exposed to it. Sephiroth requested that I reserve a small amount of my potion for his use, for he intended to seduce Terra by this means. I know not his motive for that particular action.”

Still galled by Ultimecia’s insubordinate manner but satisfied that she had at least answered his question, Chaos released his hold on the sorceress. “I might have known of his success in that endeavor,” the god remarked at last, “given the state of undress in which he was found, and Miss Branford’s scent on him and his effects. But who, then, would attack a pair so thoroughly distracted with one another?”

“Terra Branford’s enemy among us is Kefka Palazzo, a destroyer with little to no method to his madness,” I pointed out to the God of Discord at last. “I would think that his absence amid this gathering alone made him a suspect in the attack on Sephiroth.”

“You, Mateus, may be on to something,” Chaos replied. “I should question Sephiroth when he is coherent.” He turned to Garland then and delivered an order: “Garland, since Kefka Palazzo has failed to report for interrogation, you have my authority to bring him to the Old Chaos Shrine, by force if need be. Take along what manikins you see fit, in case he resists.” No sooner had Garland given his obedient salute than Chaos dismissed him and the rest of us.

I followed Ultimecia out of Chaos’s throne room and toward the warriors’ quarters. “Do you care for comfort and healing after your hard-fought battle?” I asked of her in a suggestive tone as I strode up beside her and put my free arm around her waist, “or if not quite comfort, my dear, do you care for diversion?”

“Why yes, Mateus, that would be lovely,” she answered with relief as she tried not to lean too heavily against me, mindful of my armor. Yes, I would divert her. I would even make her forget that Chaos himself had treated her with such impertinence.


	10. I won't sleep well tonight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Cloud and Luneth arrive at the Order's Sanctuary, Firion's account of what happened in the World of Darkness, as well as Terra's condition, raise serious questions and concerns for Cloud.

**I won’t sleep well tonight.** _(victory; Cloud vs. weaker opponent)_

_“Just listen to me, Luneth. No matter what it takes, we’ll find wherever it is that Sephiroth took Terra. We’ll rescue Terra, and if she’s injured, we’ll heal her. And then I’ll destroy Sephiroth for ever even looking at you, or her—and nothing, not even Chaos himself, is going to stop me!”_

I’m surprised Luneth didn’t call me a liar right away. It wouldn’t be the first time I had failed when it mattered the most.

But that wasn’t what you told a child. Especially if the child was no older than ten and came to you with multiple injuries, claiming that your enemy, of all the discord-god’s soldiers, had wounded him and kidnapped a girl who’d just been rendered helpless by a sleep spell. You didn’t tell that child of the certainty, the absolute certainty that your enemy intended to brutalize the girl he’d kidnapped in the worst way possible.

Finding one of Terra’s fingerless red gloves a short distance from the edge of a world-shard Luneth had called the “World of Darkness” only served to confirm my worst fear where Terra was concerned. “Stay here,” I’d bidden Luneth as we came within sight of a great pile of rubble.

The rest, as they say, was a blur—a red haze of consummate rage. Fury that ended only when I had then heard Luneth scream to me for help and looked up to see that two Chaos-serving warriors, Garland and the Cloud of Darkness, had double-teamed the boy. Rising to the aid of my young charge, I drew my sword to deal with Garland while Luneth fought the Cloud of Darkness (and even gained his crystal), but then I learned the hard way that we had been tricked. The battle had been a diversion, one intended to give some manikin-contingent the cover they’d needed to drag Sephiroth back to Chaos’s stronghold.

Much good it would do them! At least I’d made sure that if that bastard ever did manage to wake up from the bloody pulp I’d tried to beat him to, he would be begging Chaos to put an end to his pain.

I was distracted from these vengeful thoughts, however, when Luneth tapped me on the arm to get my attention, and when I answered his “Take a look at this, Cloud,” I saw that he had collected what appeared to be a score of arrows and no fewer than three hand-axes. I took one of the arrows from him and discovered it to be perfectly real, rather than a phantom arrow shot by one of the yellow Firion-shaped manikins. “These are Firion’s, aren’t they?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, they are,” I replied, rather taken aback.

“You didn’t find Terra anywhere in that big rock-pile, did you?” Luneth continued to ask. “Do you think Firion managed to rescue Terra and get her back to the Sanctuary?”

“I hope so, Luneth,” was the only thing I could say as I let my hand linger on Luneth’s shoulder in a way I hoped was comforting to him, “I really hope so.” For if not…what greater horrors had befallen Terra?

My thoughts continued to torment me as Luneth and I made our way from the World of Darkness all the way to the Order’s Sanctuary. Then, at long last, we arrived. No sooner had we come in view of Cosmos’s altar, however, than my heart sank yet again at what I saw.

Terra lay on Cosmos’s altar in a semi-conscious-at-best state, barely moving, her pretty green hair in wild disarray. Most of her body was blanketed in what appeared to be Firion’s cape, but I was fairly certain that she was naked underneath the too-thin cover, and even from my distance I could see blotchy red skin that indicated burning. I noted with no small relief that Firion was beside the altar as Luneth had predicted, as was Hikari, both of them attending to Terra.

Luneth and I both started running toward the altar to meet Firion and Hikari, but they shouted at us to stay away.

_“Stop!”_

_“Cloud, keep Luneth away!”_

Luneth looked hurt by this order. “I don’t understand,” he told me, confused. “Why don’t they want me to see her? It’s not like I didn’t know she’d be hurt…”

After a brief interchange with Hikari, Firion rose from his position of kneeling beside the altar and strode the distance necessary to meet Luneth and me. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure you’d be able to handle seeing Terra in the state she’s in right now,” he began, apologizing to Luneth first.

“We found these,” Luneth said to Firion, almost shyly, as he held up a bundle he’d made of the liegeman’s arrows and hand-axes from the scene, tied together with Terra’s glove. “You were the one who rescued Terra, weren’t you?”

“Thank you, Luneth,” Firion replied as he accepted the bundle. “Yes, I did find Terra and bring her here for Cosmos to heal her.”

I fixed Firion with my gravest stare. “Tell me everything that happened. From the top.”

“Very well, from the top,” Firion repeated. “I hadn’t been in the World of Darkness for very long when I first saw a brilliant flash of light, as if from a very powerful magic blast, and subsequently heard a great deal of harsh laughter. I knew not what had happened, only that somebody on Chaos’s side was responsible for some trouble. I rounded a corner, and I saw the insane clown Kefka gloating over a huge pile of rubble…”

“Kefka?” Luneth questioned. “Isn’t he Terra’s enemy on Chaos’s side?”

Again I put a hand on Luneth’s shoulder. “He is,” I answered.

“Yes, and anyway, I engaged Kefka in battle right away. I don’t know how long we fought, but at one point he managed to hit me, and once I’d gotten back on my feet I saw that he got a-hold of my wild rose, the symbol of my dream of freedom. Just before he vanished like a coward, though, he said, _‘Keep fightin’ and y’ might get your pretty posy back—but you’re far too late to save the Red Rose of Mobliz!’_ ”

Luneth gasped in fear and shrank back toward me. “By the moniker, ‘Red Rose of Mobliz,’ he meant Terra,” I translated.

“Yes,” answered Firion heavily. “Naturally, the moment I’d realized that, I tore my way through the rubble-pile in search of Terra. As expected, I found her at the very center. What I didn’t expect, however,” he went on—I could tell that he was choosing his words carefully in Luneth’s hearing—“was to see Sephiroth in the exact same state as Terra, generally speaking. Now let me ask you something, Cloud—when Luneth ran to you for help because Sephiroth had kidnapped Terra, you immediately feared the worst on Terra’s account, didn’t you?”

“You bet your ass I did,” I replied at once, not caring that Luneth overheard my curse. “You try having Sephiroth as your enemy and not be thinking worst-case scenario.”

“I knew you’d say that,” Firion demurred. “The fact that Kefka had attacked Terra and Sephiroth both in the same blast, however, as well as some other signs—the _absence_ of certain injuries on Terra’s body, for example—told me that there was trickery, rather than force, involved.”

Kefka attacking with an overpowered magic blast because Sephiroth had seduced, rather than raped, Terra? Somehow I didn’t think it fit Sephiroth’s traditional mode of operation, but I guess it made sense where Kefka was concerned. Being Terra’s enemy, Kefka would want the absolute worst for the poor girl, wouldn’t he?

“When I arrived here in the Sanctuary with the unconscious Terra in my arms, Cosmos appeared to Hikari and me, and her testament confirmed my suspicion of trickery,” Firion continued. “She stated that Sephiroth had obtained a potion from the Chaos-serving sorceress Ultimecia, a potion that had the effect of…making Terra fire when she should have been ice…and it was under this evil influence that Terra was helpless to even try and resist Sephiroth’s power.”

_The effect of making Terra fire when she should have been ice…_ a lust-inducing potion, in other words, the kind that would kick in when Terra woke up from the sleep-spell she’d suffered in battle. From there, Cosmos only knew what Sephiroth had needed to say in order to talk Terra into giving in to temptation. The fact of Terra’s fire magic being stronger than her ice magic made her an easy target for any Chaos-serving seducer willing to get into cahoots with a voyeuristic sorceress—damn it! And damn Chaos for having a witch among his soldiers!

“Is there any sign that she’s even a little better than when you found her?” Luneth asked Firion, craning his neck to look at Terra past the rebel. Some part of me silently blessed the boy for being able to yank me out of my angry thoughts.

Firion glanced back to the altar where Hikari had just carefully arranged the cape to cover most of Terra’s body but reveal her shoulders, resting her burned arms atop the cape, over her belly, and decided that it was apparently safe to let Luneth and me approach the altar. “He’s trying to get her comfortable,” the liegeman answered heavily as we walked. “She’s regained a semblance of consciousness, but she’s in too much pain to do more than twitch and whimper; I can tell by the tension in her face and the squeezed-shut eyes. Do either of you have any healing implements?”

Luneth shook his head no. “I do,” I affirmed, retrieving my Cure materia. None of my materia seemed to be quite as effective in this world as at home, but it was better than nothing. Removing my gloves and stuffing them into the pocket that the materia had been in, I knelt beside the altar and slowly brought a hand to Terra’s forehead, focusing my energy into a Cure spell.

My concentration suddenly broke, however, as Terra jerked her head to the other side with a sharp cry. I let her convulsion ebb to minor twitching and her whining drop back down to whimpers before I tried again—but I couldn’t touch her without causing her more pain, even in places that hadn’t been burned. Face, hands, shoulders, it didn’t matter; I couldn’t cast a Cure spell if she couldn’t relax under my touch. “You can’t touch her without hurting her?” came Luneth’s dismayed question.

No, it seemed that I couldn’t. “Is she this sensitive to everyone’s touches now that she’s semi-conscious, or just mine?” I asked.

“Side effect of the witch’s potion, maybe?” Firion offered as a wild guess.

“You have an aura of overpowering anger about you, Cloud,” Hikari began as he produced the wide folded sash that Terra normally wore as a belt, dipping it into a bucket of cool water before placing the article over Terra’s face so that it covered her eyes and forehead. I noted with some relief that the wounded girl seemed to relax under the treatment. “I believe that some part of Terra’s magical nature makes her extremely sensitive to that anger, especially in her wounded condition.”

“I’m not angry with _her!_ ” I protested—much louder than I had intended. Forcing myself to calm down, especially with the startled looks on Firion’s and Luneth’s faces, I emphasized: “If I’m angry, it’s not with Terra. I already know that anything she did was because Sephiroth made her do it. And even if I did hold it against her for falling for his trickery, I see that Kefka already punished her.” The understatement of the year, I thought bitterly. 

But it didn’t make sense for my anger to be the only thing making Terra hypersensitive. The heightened sensitivity to touch, light, and other stimuli…the overpowering weakness… _oh, gods, not again!_

It was something I had been through twice in my own world—it had never occurred to me that I would be the onlooker, rather than the sufferer.

“What is it?” asked Hikari, and only then did I realize that I was thinking aloud. “Cloud? Is there something you know that could have a bearing on Terra’s condition?”

“Stay here with Firion,” I bade Luneth, “He’ll tell you what you can do to help Terra.” As soon as I had assurance of Luneth’s obedience, I led Hikari some distance away from Cosmos’s altar, to where we sat down beside a spire with a crescent moon atop it, and there, out of Luneth’s earshot, I began explaining to Hikari about my home-world’s Lifestream and how Shinra Electric Power Company harnesses it for many uses. I explained about mako and Shinra’s use of it, in particular to biologically enhance the men who became SOLDIER operatives, because I had been subject to such enhancement, as had Sephiroth (although my enemy had obviously been subject to much more than the usual SOLDIER enhancements). “It has to be used extremely carefully, because misuse can result in what’s known as mako poisoning, which manifests itself physically by making the subject extremely weak and hypersensitive to light, sound, and being touched.”

I didn’t expect Hikari to fully understand, but he did seem to understand well enough. He then phrased his next question quite directly as he followed my dire suspicions: “And you suppose that mako could find its way into semen, if a soldier from your world had enough of it in his system?”

At the question, I couldn’t help but palm my forehead in both hands. How in the hell could everything in the universe have aligned against Terra the way it had? A normal, human woman could, in all likelihood, have sex with a SOLDIER and not feel any out-of-the-ordinary harmful effects. But if Terra’s physiology of being half-Esper really did make her that sensitive…if even the tiny amount of mako in Sephiroth’s semen had been enough to cause mako poisoning…

And would Terra even be in this horrible condition at all if Kefka hadn’t blasted her and Sephiroth both with that powerful magic blast of which Firion had spoken? Would she instead be sobbing and groveling at Cosmos’s altar after her confrontation with the insane clown, begging the harmony-goddess to forgive her sin, as opposed to lying atop the altar fighting for her life?

“Listen, Cloud,” Hikari spoke up, distracting me from my dreadful predictions. “Zidane Tribal passed through the Sanctuary several hours ago, and I recruited him for a mission that should give us the help we need to help Terra. I sent him to sneak into Ultimecia’s castle for a book of potion recipes, in which should be the potion whose influence Terra was under at the time that Sephiroth seduced her. We’re hoping that it’ll have an antidote, as well as that there’ll be a preventative to keep any lasting harm from occurring. In the meantime, come back to the altar. You and Luneth both need some rest.”

I did as Hikari asked, sitting down at the corner of the altar by Terra’s feet. Luneth soon joined me, looking ready to cry at any moment, much the same emotional state as he’d been in when he first came to me with the dreadful news of Terra’s capture. I reached for him and soon had him wrapped up in my arms—whether I wanted to comfort him or needed his presence to comfort me, I didn’t know; I supposed it was a combination of both. I held Luneth as he wept, and as he cried himself to sleep in my arms.

Cosmos help us all, I prayed. Cosmos help us all.


	11. Let's do what we can.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terra wakes up in the Order's Sanctuary in pain from her wounds and severely guilt-stricken over her actions in the World of Darkness. Cloud, Firion, and Hikari do everything in their power to heal and comfort her.

**Let’s do what we can.** _(intro, Cloud to Terra)_

My muscles were sore and stiff when I came awake in the very same position in which I had fallen asleep: sitting at the foot of Cosmos’s altar with the young Luneth in my arms. Had he really not stirred himself from the comfort of my embrace the whole—however-many—hours I’d slept? Poor boy. As gently as I could, I managed to extricate myself from him and get up. “I need to get up,” I told him, softly; “go back to sleep if you need to, but I really have to get up and stretch.” Luneth clung to me at first, but he relinquished his hold on me soon enough and lay with his back pressed to the still-warm foot of the altar, quickly falling back to sleep.

I began stretching the stiffness out of my body, massaging the place where the shoulder-guard I wore had been digging into my upper back and looking about me as I did. Firion lay asleep at the side of the altar below the head of the still-whimpering Terra. Hikari, however, looked as though he had fallen asleep in the midst of prayer: kneeling beside Cosmos’s altar, head resting on the edge, clasping Terra’s right hand with his own. I hoped that his falling asleep hadn’t left the wounded Terra very long without one of us awake to attend to her in case she needed anything.

I prodded Hikari awake with a light slap to his armored back. “Go find a more comfortable position to sleep in, Hikari, preferably a little bit away from the altar,” I admonished. “I’m awake now and can watch over Terra.” Hikari got up to do just that (even more clumsily than I had, as he had been sleeping in a more awkward position than I), and I set about doing what I could for Terra. Perhaps I could try again to heal her with Cure spells, since I was now significantly less worked-up than I had been on arriving at the Sanctuary.

When I gently clasped Terra’s hand, the one that Hikari had been holding, I was relieved when she twitched a bit but did not try to yank her hand out of my grasp. Her palm was unburned and her fingers mostly so, but there was copious redness on the back of her hand and outside of the arm. Touching my Cure materia to an edge of the burned area, I focused my energy into healing Terra of her wounds, and slowly but surely I began to see creamy, healthy skin appearing in place of the reddened burned skin.

The closer I came to Terra’s shoulders and upper chest, I observed, the less burned skin there seemed to be. The right side of her face and neck had not been burned, but as I went around the altar and worked on healing the burned places on the left side of the green-haired girl’s body, I saw that there was a bruised place on the left side of her neck, underneath the burning. A love-bite, as it may be euphemistically termed—I suspected as much. But was it really so that the areas of Terra’s body that were in direct contact with Sephiroth’s at the time of Kefka’s magic-blast were spared the burning? The fact that the insides of her arms, and most of her upper chest, were unburned would certainly seem to affirm that theory.

I took an ether before renewing my healing effort and had just pulled back Firion’s cape, resting it on Terra’s upper thighs so that I could begin to heal the burns on her legs, when I heard running footsteps and saw that the monkey-tailed thief Zidane was approaching with a book in his hands. “Cloud,” Zidane acknowledged me as he arrived. “I’m really glad somebody’s got some kind of curative other than healing potions.”

At his end of the altar, Firion was stirring awake and slowly rising to his feet. “Mission accomplished?” he asked when he saw that Zidane was present.

“Mission accomplished,” Zidane answered with a brief smile, handing the book to Firion, but it was soon replaced with an uncertain look—“At least, I hope… I hope I stole the right book from the wicked old witch…”

“We’ll soon find out, won’t we?” said Firion as he opened the back of the book in the hopes of finding what we needed to know via the index. “At least it looks as if Cloud’s managing to heal more of Terra’s burns with his materia than we’ve been able to by rubbing healing potions on the affected skin.”

Zidane let out a short sigh of relief. “Good that the burning’s starting to disappear,” he replied, kneeling beside the altar and taking hold of Terra’s hand. “Hey, how you doing, Terra?” he asked her half rhetorically. I was relieved to hear Terra moan a little bit and see her squeeze Zidane’s hand lightly in reply; she was, once again, some semblance of conscious.

I focused my effort into healing the burns on Terra’s legs, not paying any attention to the words that Zidane and Firion exchanged, until I heard Firion give a startled gasp. “Good gods,” the liegeman murmured. “It’s literally every aphrodisiac in the book—if this potion is what Terra was under when Sephiroth seduced her, it’s no wonder that she…”

“You mean she was seduced?” Zidane interrupted, letting go of Terra’s hand. “But your cover-story was that Terra was under one of Ultimecia’s potions, which is why Hikari sent me to steal a potion-book from the witch—and that Kefka ambushed Terra, which is why she’s so badly burned. When Ultimecia tried to waylay me, she said, _‘the seed of Chaos will take root, no matter what you do to try and prevent it’_ —I was under the impression that Terra had been raped—by Chaos himself, no less!” Zidane’s voice rose with panic, and I had to shush him because his panic-fit was distressing Terra further and woke up Hikari and Luneth.

“Hikari, you and Luneth do what you can to heal Terra some more,” Firion sighed in exasperation. “Cloud and I need to smooth things over with Zidane.” Once Firion had led Zidane and me a sufficient distance away from the altar, once again out of Luneth’s hearing, he explained: “Zidane, hear me out, I’m telling you exactly the same thing that I told Cloud.” The liegeman proceeded to give his account of the events. “So, essentially, Ultimecia was the _purveyor_ of this mind-altering substance through the use of which Sephiroth was able to take advantage of Terra. But because Sephiroth decided to show Terra the mercy of seduction instead of rape, _that’s_ why Kefka got angry and blasted them both while they were obviously distracted.”

Zidane nodded in understanding. “And you and Hikari left out the part about Sephiroth being involved because you thought it would only matter to me if Kuja had a part to play in this whole mess. But what I’m worried about is what Ultimecia said: _‘the seed of Chaos…’_ ”—

“She meant it in exactly the context you’re thinking of, even if the ‘seed’ in question wasn’t necessarily that of Chaos himself,” I cut Zidane off, repressing an unpleasant shiver. Hitherto I had been more worried about Terra suffering mako poisoning than about her possibly getting pregnant. “I’m guessing that’s the other reason why you were called on to steal that potion-book. Which means we can’t waste time, so I’m going back to Terra to heal her. Firion, tell Hikari and me when you find an antidote for whatever Terra was under.”

The three of us went back to Cosmos’s altar together, and shortly I began to hear indistinct talk among the others as I renewed my efforts to heal the burned places along each of Terra’s legs. Once I looked up from my task, I saw that both Zidane and Luneth had departed from the Sanctuary. “I convinced Luneth to go with Zidane—apparently Zidane was traveling with Bartz Klauser when they became separated, and he was scared when he thought the badly-wounded comrade on Cosmos’s altar was Bartz,” Hikari explained when he caught my puzzled look. “Since Luneth has his crystal already, maybe he can help Bartz and Zidane find theirs.”

“Good thing to get Luneth away right now,” Firion added, “because as much as he wants to help Terra, we’re to the point where he, young as he is, needs to clear off and let the adults do the work.” Firion was right; most of Terra’s burns were healed except for those on her back from nape to buttocks and the backs of her thighs. She was still obviously in pain and unwilling to move or open her eyes, however, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much internal damage the (unwitting) united front of Kefka and Sephiroth had done. Terra would need to be able to actually _drink_ some healing potions (instead of having them rubbed into her skin) in order to heal on the inside, and for that, she needed to be conscious.

“Terra,” I murmured, clasping her hand. She gave a slight groan and (as her folded sash no longer covered her face) crinkled her brows as if she wanted to open her eyes but couldn’t, lest the ambient light blind her. “Terra, we need to heal the burns on your back,” I began by way of explanation. “Do you have the strength in you to sit up or roll over so we can do that?”

“I’ll—try,” she croaked in answer, pulling her hand loose from mine to keep the cover of Firion’s cape over her breasts and steadying herself with the other arm. Slowly, with much wincing and whimpering, she rolled over onto her front. As predicted, Terra’s entire back was covered in angry red flesh from nape to thighs, with the exception of two distinct broad diagonal swaths of unburned skin. I knew at once that those areas were the places where Sephiroth’s arms had been wrapped around Terra’s body when Kefka blasted them both. These burned places took somewhat longer for me to heal with my materia for some reason.

When I finished healing most of the remaining burns and Terra could roll over to lie on her back again (it seemed to be the position that gave her the least pain), Firion uncorked yet another vial of healing potion and, clasping Terra’s hand as I had done, prepared to administer it. “You’ll feel at least a little better once you’ve had a healing potion, Terra; do you think you can drink one now?” he asked of her, and when she nodded her head yes, he moved his free hand to her head to tilt it up slightly and began to slowly pour the contents of the vial into her mouth. I watched the muscles in her throat work to swallow the potion (and the grimace that crossed her face at the bitter taste) and continued to watch her face as the medicine did its healing work. Then, at long last, she was able to open her blue eyes.

“Am—am I in—in the Order’s—Sanctuary?” she blearily managed to ask, blinking her eyes rapidly against the ambient light. “Gods, I—feel like I’ve—been blasted to smithereens…”

“No, Terra, you’re still in one piece,” answered Firion, seizing Terra’s hand again and kissing her palm as though he were kissing the hand of Cosmos herself in relief and gratitude. “Thank Cosmos you’re still in one piece!”

Terra glanced forlornly at her other hand for a moment before grasping the cape that covered her as she sat up and turned back to Firion—and then she noticed that Hikari and I were present as well. And the moment that her eyes met mine was the moment she was overcome with guilt. “Cloud,” she choked out, voice barely above a whisper, “Cloud, I’m so sorry—I…” Any more words that she might have said were lost; Terra pulled her hand out of Firion’s and averted her face as she broke down into tears, at once spilling her shame to the heavens in loud sobbing.

I should have expected that Terra would cry over what had happened in the World of Darkness, what Sephiroth had tricked her into doing, but maybe I hadn’t expected her reaction to be so instant, or so visceral. Now I felt her distress as keenly as if it had been my own. Patiently I waited for the sobs to die down before I took a handkerchief that Hikari handed to me and pressed it into Terra’s hand. 

“Terra,” I murmured, placing a hand on her shoulder in the same comforting manner that I had done for Luneth earlier once she had wiped the tears from her face, “Terra, look at me.” She met my blue eyes with her blue eyes, and I knew that it was taking all her courage to hold my gaze. “I know what happened, Terra. I know exactly what happened when Sephiroth took you to the World of Darkness, and I’m _not_ blaming you for _any_ of it.” And this was true; I knew better than to hold it against her. I knew better than to blame anybody other than Sephiroth for what happened (and perhaps Ultimecia, for aiding him in his ploy). “You did what you had to do in order to prevent worse from happening.” And of this I felt certain. Had Terra resisted Sephiroth’s advances, the spiteful son-of-a-bitch _would_ have raped her, and that wasn’t something that I would wish on anybody.

“I knew it wasn’t natural,” she replied now, lowering her eyes and shaking her head, “the way his touch threatened to set me on fire—when it should’ve done the opposite, it should’ve turned my blood to ice…”

Hikari, who had stood up and been pacing back and forth, knelt down again to be closer to Terra’s eye level. “You were under the influence of a potion meant to induce lust,” he explained to her, “which Sephiroth managed to introduce into your system when you fell under a sleep spell that was, according to what Luneth told Cloud, cast on you by one of the manikins that you fought. When the sleep spell began to wear off, that was when the lust potion did its work, and I have no doubt that Sephiroth had prepared some manner of verbal manipulations to break down what little resistance you did show.”

“That he did,” Terra confirmed, looking uncertainly about her as she began to explain further. “At first I accused him of intending to hand me over to Kefka—why else would _anyone_ on Chaos’s side want to kidnap me, after all?—but then Sephiroth told me that, in fact, he wanted more than anything to see me destroy Kefka, because Kefka annoyed him so very much.” _Damn._ If the clownish red manikins were any indicator of Kefka’s nature, Sephiroth might actually have been telling Terra the truth when he said this. But I said nothing, and Terra continued: “So he went on to say that if only I was willing to let him help me, he could…pour some of his power…into me…and thereby give me just what I needed to overpower Kefka when I finally did face him.”

“And do you think there was any truth to that?” I inquired, trying not to sound harsh or sardonic, “I mean, is it part of your nature as a half-Esper that good sex is supposed to bolster your magic?”

“I honestly wouldn’t know,” she answered sadly. “Supposedly it works that way for full-blooded Espers, especially female ones, but I’m not sure if it would work for me because I’m only half-Esper—not that I’ve ever even had the nerve to try. But it did feel like the sleep spell I’d been under, or that potion Hikari mentioned—or maybe both—served to suppress my magic…”

I knew it. “And that, in turn, made Sephiroth’s so-called gift of a power-boost much more tempting, even if you knew it a sin for you to accept such a proposition,” I surmised, trying hard to conceal my frustration.

Terra must have been able to sense my ill-controlled anger, because her distress returned. “I remember praying for Cosmos's forgiveness even as I told Sephiroth I accepted his offer,” she confessed, “but then he was kissing me, and—I’m so sorry, Cloud—I couldn’t even remember _why_ I was trying to resist him in the first place…” But she was unable and unwilling to say any more as she dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief again, struggling to hold back sobs.

“You don’t need to defend yourself to me, Terra, or to anyone here,” I told her. “The only person here who might have held what happened against you is Firion; he’s the one who found you in a compromising position. But Cosmos made it known to us that you had no choice in the matter, and you should know that since _she_ forgives you, so do we.”

My words seemed to comfort Terra, if only a little, because she managed, with great effort, not to break down into a sobbing mess again. She did, however, begin to look about her in a confused manner. “But why…why did I wake up hurting so badly?” she asked of nobody in particular. “Surely I’m not supposed to feel run-down like this after…” She broke off, too embarrassed to finish.

“That would be Kefka’s doing,” Hikari began to explain. “It was perhaps _because_ Sephiroth elected to ensure your pleasure in intimacy with him, by means of a lust potion, that Kefka grew angry and struck the both of you with an extremely powerful magic-blast while you and your seducer were too thoroughly distracted with each other to notice his presence.”

“Light of Judgment,” Terra clarified. “That’s what Kefka called it when he was at the height of his power in my world.”

Hikari proceeded to give Terra the same account that he and Firion had given to me, from Firion’s battle with Kefka and how it drew his attention to her plight to Cosmos’s testament stating the nature of the evil influence under which Terra had fallen, and the information-seeking mission on which he, Hikari, had sent Zidane. “As we speak, Firion is preparing an antidote for you, in order to kill any lingering traces of that lust potion that are still in your system,” he added, “and he did gather your personal effects from the scene. Do you think you’re well enough to get up and dressed, or do you need another healing potion before you can fit back into that tight dress of yours without it chafing any remaining burned skin?” When Terra answered that she was feeling equal to the task of putting her clothes back on, Hikari handed them to her and led me away from the altar in order to give Terra some much-needed privacy.

“Fortunately, all eight of the lust-inducing potions in this ‘grand-sorceress’s potion-book’ can be countered easily enough with a rather simple antidote,” Firion explained as he placed a tea-ball into a mug and poured boiling water over it. “The treatment calls for one cup of strong green tea, with seven drops of peppermint oil and two teaspoons of a light honey added to it. This green-tea-with-peppermint preparation is to be administered once every hour until it can be safely determined that the subject is no longer under the influence.” These antidote-ingredients made some sense; green tea was reputed as a brain stimulant, and peppermint reputed for having a cooling effect. But why “a light honey?” I wondered. Were most of the lust potions in the book made with darker varieties of honey?

Terra gingerly approached our gathering, fully dressed except for her ruined stockings, as Firion was adding honey to the tea along with the peppermint oil. “Thank you all so much for healing me as best you could,” said she, sitting down at the campfire between Hikari and Firion. “I shudder to think what might’ve happened if nobody else had been around when Kefka reared his ugly head…”

“Drink this,” Firion bade her as he offered the mug of tea. “It’s green tea with peppermint oil and wild rose honey, and it should combat any lingering traces of lust potion, but depending on which one of these eight potions you were under and how much of it, it’s probably—no, it’s definitely—going to take more than one cup to purge the remnants from your body.”

Terra obediently took the tea with a grateful smile to Firion and began to drink. “It’s certainly strong and minty,” she remarked in an embarrassed manner, schooling her expression back into more of a smile than a grimace.

“It has to be strong,” I answered wryly. “An antidote needs to be powerful if it’s going to counter a powerful poison or other evil influence.” Not only was this absolutely true, but it was also fortunate that the menthol in peppermint oil was an effective counter for mako poisoning, in case my fear was justified with regards to mako not playing well with Esper magic.

Firion, Hikari, and I had definitely made considerable progress in nursing Terra back to health, but she was still far from being at full strength. I could only pray that she recovered soon and could bring Kefka to justice…and that it took that much _longer_ for Sephiroth to recover from having been collateral damage.


	12. How was I broken?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth wakes up in the Old Chaos Shrine feeling thoroughly battered and beaten, and he soon realizes the true nature of what at first seemed like yet another attempt by Kefka at petty provocation.

**How was I broken?** _(defeat; Sephiroth vs. stronger opponent)_

What the hell? Why was I in such pain all over my body? I felt as though I’d been thrown into an incinerator, or I’d had a building fall on me…

Oh, gods, did someone, or something, knock over one of the pillars in the area in which I’d made camp in order to seduce Terra Branford, so that the pillar fell down on us both?

With painful effort I searched the area immediately around me with one arm and then the other. No warm feminine body met my searching hands. Did Terra manage to escape me somehow, or did someone else drag her away? Bewildered, I opened my eyes.

I wasn’t even _in_ the World of Darkness at all, I quickly discovered. Rather, I had somehow been returned to my quarters-room at the Old Chaos Shrine, and was now lying on the large bed with its sheets of off-white silk instead of on my spread-out coat. The coverlet and top sheet had been drawn up to cover me from feet to waist, and on seeing this, I also saw that much of my chest and upper abdomen were covered in purple bruises, and much of my body that was not bruised was covered instead in angry red burned skin. Miraculously, however, my hands remained unburned. I skimmed the left one over my face and neck to test for further injuries. The left side of my neck, as well as most of my face, was painfully warm and touch-sensitive, but the right side of my neck seemed not to be burned…I distinctly remembered Terra burying her face in the crook of my neck on that side as I thrust into her with deep, languid strokes—

A sharp, hot pain shot into my loins as though I had been given a hard kick by an invisible foot. Gods…did someone, or something, hit me in the balls while I was unconscious? Painfully I drew my knees up (even the soles of my feet had been burned somehow) and lifted the coverlet to assess the damage. Yes, my manhood appeared to be thoroughly crushed and bruised, hence the sudden pain. My legs, meanwhile, had been burned to redness and blistering from thighs to feet; only my buttocks and part of my lower back seemed like they had not been burned.

As if he sensed my awakening, Chaos, God of Discord, materialized in the room, just inside the closed door as if he had just entered through it. “So the wounded man is awake at last,” he remarked in a low and calm voice.

“Who brought me in here,” I demanded as I painfully rose into a sitting position, “and why do I feel as though I’ve been run through a trash compactor?”

“All in due time, Sephiroth, don’t act in such a disgruntled manner in your current state, lest you interfere with the regeneration spell that your injuries necessitated,” Chaos scolded. All that I could do in my current state was glare at him, and he explained: “You were brought in here three hours ago when Garland and the Cloud of Darkness returned from their patrol with the contingent of Counterfeit Wraiths I had sent along with them. I sensed a disturbance in the World of Darkness, and I dispatched Garland and the Cloud of Darkness to investigate it. When the Counterfeit Wraiths returned carrying your naked and unconscious form along with your personal effects, I realized that the disturbance I sensed was the result of someone engulfing you, along with your one-time lover Terra Branford, in a magic blast powerful enough to severely wound the both of you.”

_Along with your one-time lover Terra Branford…_ how did Chaos know of my involvement with Terra and how I’d sought to seduce her? “Her scent was all over your body and the lining of your coat, of course,” the discord-god continued, “and when I was able to question some of the others as to their dealings with you, Ultimecia was initially reluctant, but eventually revealed that you had requested a lust-inducing potion from her in order to beguile the innocent Miss Branford into willingly spreading her legs for you. However, before you ask, neither Garland nor the Cloud of Darkness found Miss Branford at the scene, therefore she was not brought here as a prisoner; she was obviously rescued prior to their arrival.” Chaos paused for a moment before speaking again. “You must notice now, as I did, that any part of your body that was in direct contact with that of Miss Branford was spared the burning from the magic blast—and you are about to ask why most of those parts are bruised instead of burned. I will tell you. An account by Garland of the incident revealed to me that your enemy, the Cosmos-serving warrior Cloud Strife, reached you at some point between the initial disturbance and my patrol’s arrival on the scene…”

“And Cloud proceeded to beat me as hard as his fists and feet would allow while I was unconscious and unable to defend myself,” I finished for him. So the puppet was indeed cowardly enough to attack an unconscious and already-wounded enemy, or perhaps it was merely a mark of how easily I could bait him. In either case, I would make Cloud regret it. For every blow that he inflicted on me, I would inflict the same on him.

But surely there was another player in this equation, one who merited my vengeance even more than Cloud did (as odd as I might have thought the notion). “Be that as it may, though, this state I’m in reeks of foul play,” I announced. “Even if someone who served Cosmos had caught me with Terra and sought to attack me for that reason, they would not have risked any harm to her in the process.”

“Great minds _do_ think alike,” Chaos mused briefly before his next bit of explanation. “I agree with you, Sephiroth; someone else within my ranks is responsible for the magic-blast that wounded you to incapacitation.”

I mentally searched my list of so-called allies for which one of them might have motive to turn about and attack me because I had sought to seduce Terra. Garland and the Cloud of Darkness were both obviously in the Old Chaos Shrine at the time that I had been having sex with Terra and had therefore been attacked; neither one could possibly be Terra’s and my attacker. Emperor Mateus? I doubted it; he, like Ultimecia, would see the potential for Terra to be swayed willingly back to the side of Chaos if I seduced her. Perhaps Kuja, the silver wizard, had formulated a similar plan and was furious because I had beaten him in terms of setting such a plan into motion?

“No, I had the opportunity of questioning Kuja, and his only transgression to date is failing to report for interrogation when called,” Chaos interrupted my train of thought. “At the time of the disturbance, Kuja had been busy setting a trap for his enemy, the thief Zidane Tribal.”

Before I could ask about any of the others, or if Chaos had a definite suspect, the door opened and the gruff bearded athlete Jecht entered the room, slamming the door shut behind him. “Got more of the anti-burn powder you asked for,” he reported to Chaos as he set a large jar of white powder on the nightstand (I had been wondering what the powdery substance on my sheets was; Chaos had obviously caused the sheets to be spackled with the powder before I was placed on them), “and I figured I’d make up a cold pack while I was at it.” Jecht handed me a cold compress, which I accepted gratefully, feeling immediate relief as I placed it on my bruised loins. “Hey, I coach blitzball where I come from—treatin’ a bruised pair o’ balls now and then is part o’ my job.”

“But who blasted me and gave Cloud an opening to beat me while I was unconscious in the first place?” I testily demanded. I needed to know who was responsible for the burns all over my body so that I could make the offender suffer as he deserved.

“Well, the annoying-ass clown is at the top o’ the suspect list,” Jecht answered as Chaos thanked him for his assistance and left the room, “and so far he and the other two metal-heads are the only ones who haven’t gotten questioned yet.” By the “other two metal-heads,” Jecht was referring to Golbez (a warlock who did not seem particularly loyal to Chaos) and Exdeath (who, like the Cloud of Darkness, was apparently a herald of “the Void”), both of whom wore heavy armor. It made no sense to me that Golbez would be behind the attack on Terra and me, at least no more sense than it would for Jecht (obviously innocent, or Chaos would not allow him to have any part in treating my injuries) to be my attacker. Exdeath was a destroyer by nature, as was the Cloud of Darkness, but I had not sensed any outright hostility from him…had I overlooked something, some subtle sign from him?

Or the “annoying-ass clown,” in Jecht’s words, Kefka the infernal nuisance—

_The distinctive volley-of-bangs sound from a firecracker being set off that woke me up in the middle of the night—no sooner was I out the door of my room to investigate the noise than I’d gotten a face, neck, and chest full of glass shards and cherry soda._

The moment I heard the first grating note of Kefka’s laughter was the moment I gave chase. I had pursued the annoying clown all over the Old Chaos Shrine, several circuits around the halls before he managed to disappear through the portal into Pandaemonium. Bleeding from several shallow broken-glass wounds and thoroughly enraged at having been unable to catch that irritant, I then abandoned my pursuit and went back to my room in order to clean myself up and tend all the scratches covering the front of my body.

“I’m mixin’ Chaos’s magic healing powder with some water t’ make a burn-mending paste for ya,” Jecht explained, interrupting my thoughts. “Need me to put it on where you can’t reach?”

I muttered a grudging assent, shifting myself to the edge of the bed so that Jecht would not need to climb atop the bed to reach me. He handled his task of applying the burn paste to my back in a professional manner as his claim to being a sports coach would suggest, the businesslike touch of a doctor treating his patient. “Good o’ Terra to wrap her arms an’ legs around you an’ spare you at least a bit o’ the burning,” he commented as he finished applying the paste to the lower part of my burned back. “Guess I should leave the rest t’ you now. There’s plenty more burn paste in that jar, so don’t hesitate t’ use a lot of it where you’ve got blisters,” Jecht admonished. “Leave that stuff on wherever you’re burned for at least fifteen minutes before you wash it off in the shower, and make sure the shower water isn’t too warm or too cold.”

Jecht took his leave of me, and as I continued the task of covering the burned areas of my body with Chaos’s burn-mending paste, I thought more about the boorish man’s statement of, _“Well, the annoying-ass clown is at the top of the suspect list…”_ Yes, it did seem that Kefka Palazzo had some sort of vendetta against me that went beyond petty provocation. That red substance that he had managed to spray me with in the middle of the night—that wasn’t cherry soda, was it? It was only _after_ I stopped chasing that clown that I remembered that Terra Branford was the Cosmos-serving warrior slated to oppose him—and I had felt my blood grow warmer at the mere thought of her name. The more I thought of Terra, the harder I felt myself grow—

Another painful twinge in the region of my manhood reminded me of my bruised condition, and I took a few deep breaths to calm down—

That red substance was actually a potion meant to induce lust, wasn’t it? I should’ve remembered that Ultimecia’s lust potion, when I had asked her for some so that I could use it to seduce Terra, was also a cherry-like shade of dark red—had Kefka intended to set me on Terra’s trail when he shattered the glass potion-bottle all over me?

But that didn’t make sense—why would a sadistic insane clown wish to set another Chaos-serving man on the trail of a female he considered an enemy, if he was just going to engulf them both in a powerful magic blast…

Unless—

Unless that insane clown was even more of a despicable coward than anyone would have taken him for otherwise!

He’d meant to see a rape, rather than a seduction. Kefka had set me on Terra’s trail in the hopes that I would rape her, hadn’t he? He wanted to make her suffer in that worst of ways, but he was too much of a coward to “have a go at” any woman like that unless she was under the most potent forms of mind control. So, in a manner of speaking, he sent _me_ to do his dirty work for him—but when I decided to ensure Terra’s pleasure through the use of Ultimecia’s lust potion and my own innate talent for pleasing women with gentle touches and seductive words, Kefka got angry and blasted Terra and me both at precisely the moment when neither of us stood a chance of noticing his presence, let alone returning fire on him. Terra was the insane clown’s target, as always, and Kefka made me collateral damage in his magic blast as a way of punishing me for being merciful to Terra.

Almost completely covered in burn-mending paste now, I tested the damage to my feet by beginning to stand up. Sure enough, unfortunately, walking on the burned soles of my feet, even the short distance from my bed to the bathroom that connected my room to Garland’s, felt like walking on red-hot coals. I would need to remedy that part once I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub waiting for the rest of the paste to do its work.

It wasn’t until after I was showered and starting to get dressed, however, when I noticed what looked suspiciously like a throwing-axe on my nightstand. Such an object could have only belonged to the Cosmos-serving warrior Firion, who was slated to oppose Emperor Mateus at some point during the conflict—did either Garland or the Cloud of Darkness bring it in as evidence? If that was the case, it must mean that Firion had somehow happened upon Terra and myself while we were both unconscious, and had taken Terra to the Order’s Sanctuary before Chaos’s patrol found her. Firion was a little better at prioritizing than Cloud, then—at least he didn’t waste precious time beating on me while Terra’s life was at stake, as Cloud would have done. Perhaps I should return the hand-axe to Firion as a way of thanking him for rescuing Terra, or have Terra do the same if I met her first.

That would need to wait until the regeneration spell of which Chaos had spoken (presumably to repair the bruising to my loins) finished doing its work, however. My usual vendetta against Cloud could also wait. Before I could set any further plans into motion, my first order of business was to hunt Kefka down and make him pay for having incapacitated me with his magic blast. He would regret crossing me soon enough; of that I was certain. He would regret that he so much as pointed a finger in my direction, if I had anything to say about it.


	13. Your looks will not deceive me!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heroes' acceptance of a bargain from Ultimecia - an emergency contraceptive in exchange for the return of her potion book - draws down on them the sudden, and premature, appearance of the dragon-god Shinryu. What is this capricious deity planning?

**Your looks will not deceive me!** _(intro, Firion to Ultimecia)_

The four of us who lingered here at the Order’s Sanctuary—Terra, Cloud, Hikari, and myself—ate in relative silence the meal that Cosmos provided for us to assemble: flame-broiled beef and potatoes, and a salad of mixed greens, carrots, and mushrooms. Terra seemed to be recovering from her close brush with death tolerably well, all things considered. When she had finished eating her dinner and had drunk a fourth cup of peppermint green tea, she excused herself and walked a fair distance away. Soon a dense fog surrounded her, and frequent splashing of water from amid the fog indicated that Terra was almost certainly making some attempt at cleaning herself. Within ten minutes, she returned to the campfire, her hair damp and messy, haphazardly tied with her ribbon.

Terra tried to maintain a normal gait as she returned to the campfire, but I caught a distinct wobble in her step, as though it had become difficult for her to walk. _Maybe not so quick to recover after all,_ I thought. “Firion,” she addressed me in a plea barely above a whisper, “I-I need another healing potion…” She broke off, either lost for words or once again too embarrassed to finish. I reached up to Terra and allowed her to use my arm for support as she slowly lowered herself back into her former sitting position beside me.

As I eased Terra down to where she would sit, Cloud uncorked the requested healing potion. “It took four cups of green tea with peppermint before you asked for one of these,” he observed aloud as he handed her the open vial, a troubled mind evident in his eyes. “I can’t tell whether that’s a sign of your admirable fortitude, or a sign of just how potent that lust potion really was.”

“How do you mean?” Terra asked in a confused manner, grimacing with distaste as she swallowed the healing potion, seeming uncertain of whether to be flattered or offended by the blond man’s statement.

I put a supportive arm around her waist. “We can both tell that you’re hurting on the inside, if you know what I mean,” I answered, causing her to become shame-faced again. “It’s what happens when a small and fairy-like woman with little to no sexual experience sleeps with a man as terribly well-endowed as the one who seduced you. The lust-inducing potion that you were under had the effect of dulling the pain when you first woke up, especially given that you were hurting from Kefka’s magic blast, but since the potion is wearing off and we’ve healed you of almost all your burns, those aches and twinges are now beginning to make themselves felt.”

Cloud lightly touched Terra’s wrist to get her attention, about to say something, but something else suddenly caused him to look over his shoulder in alarm. Hikari, Terra, and I all saw nothing when we tried to follow his gaze, but he jumped up, massive Buster Sword in hand. “Something evil is out there,” he announced in warning. He strode to the portal leading from the Sanctuary to Dream’s End, and within moments of his reaching it there was a flash of light and a scuffle. Hikari began making his way toward the source of the fighting while I stood protectively in front of Terra, but the scuffle appeared to have ended with Cloud seizing a red, purple, and black figure by its throat and lifting his opponent off the ground, holding his sword up threateningly with his other hand.

“It’s the witch!” Cloud shouted to the rest of us. So the intruder was Ultimecia—she obviously came here because we had sent Zidane to steal her book of potion recipes, and she wanted the book back. Daring of her to approach the Sanctuary alone in quest of such a trivial item, I had to admit. 

Or did she have backup in the form of a Chaos-serving ally or manikin entourage? “Keep your swords trained on her, both of you,” I ordered to Cloud and Hikari. No way was I taking chances with any soldier of Chaos. “I’m assuming you want your potion book back, witch?” I finally demanded to know of Ultimecia once Cloud and Hikari had forced her to a position a few yards away from the altar.

“This is why I find being among Chaos’s chosen to be rather better than being among those who serve Cosmos,” she said disdainfully to nobody in particular. “At least none of my fellow Chaos-minions attack me when I merely approach them in hopes of conducting business.”

“Don’t waste time with mindless drivel,” Cloud snarled. “You claim to have come to bargain with us in order to get your recipe book back? No. It’s not going to work. There’s nothing you can give us that we’d consider a fair exchange.”

Ultimecia cocked her head to the side for a moment. “Well, I did taunt the monkey-tailed thief a bit just before a certain gunbladist came in to provoke a fight,” she began in a seemingly offhanded manner. “I did tell him that ‘the seed of Chaos’ would take root in spite of any attempt at prevention, and though it pains me to be the cause of my own falsehood on that score…which of you has the book nearest to hand?”

“I have it,” Terra answered, holding up the book to show accordingly.

“Open it to page one hundred and eighty-four,” the older woman bade her. “Read aloud what it states under the ‘Properties’ and ‘Indications’ headings beneath the potion name.”

Terra did as she was told: _“A potion of thin consistency, clear turquoise in coloration and possessing the pungent aroma of red onions…may be taken in a single dose in order to prevent unplanned pregnancy in the event of unprotected sexual intercourse, if it is taken within seven days of such. This elixir is safe for human women, as well as those of most demi-human and humanoid races.”_

Ultimecia slipped one hand into a pocket and produced a flask that held three or four ounces of a clear turquoise potion. “In short, a preventative,” she stated. “That’s what I bring in exchange for my recipe book. A fair trade, is it not?”

“I’m not sure I trust any more foreign magic around Terra,” was Cloud’s reproof.

“You don’t have to agree to my bargain, of course,” Ultimecia replied in a falsely resigned tone. “I can leave without my recipe book, and Terra can find herself weakened as her unborn child drains away her strength and magic…and when she tries to confront Kefka and gain her crystal, he will crush her like a ladybug under his boot. Alas, was that not why Sephiroth sought out pretty Terra in the first place, to pour his power into her so that she could obliterate that infernal nuisance?”

Terra stood up. “So he claimed,” she stated coldly. “And it might have worked, if only Kefka hadn’t lashed out with his Light of Judgment.”

Ultimecia seemed taken aback to learn this. “You know this, my dear?” she inquired in half-feigned curiosity. “But how?”

“Funny thing about powerful magic is that it draws the attention of anyone who happens to be in the area,” I replied sardonically, “which is how I learned that Kefka was behind some trouble. Long story short, we fought, and Kefka taunted me about Terra being in trouble just before he vanished. The rest, as they say, is history.”

“So it is.” I carefully watched as the sorceress paused to process what Terra and I had just apprised her of. Finally she turned to hand the bottle of turquoise potion to Hikari. “Very well. If Cosmos decides that my preventative is safe for Terra, then there is no reason not to take it in exchange for my recipe book.”

As I looked Hikari in the eye, I began to hear Cosmos’s clear and gentle voice in my mind. _Accept the bargain,_ she bade, _for the contraceptive is safe and will not react ill to Terra’s Esper nature._

As it had since my arrival in this piecemeal world, my faith in Cosmos decided for me. I turned around and reached out to Terra, sliding the book out of her loosened grasp, turning back around, and reluctantly relinquishing the book to Ultimecia. Hikari then took the bottle of turquoise potion from the witch, and no more words were exchanged as he and Cloud saw to it that Ultimecia departed from the Sanctuary with no hostile action.

Terra wordlessly took the bottle of preventative from Hikari then, wrinkling her nose at the smell as she twisted the cap off. Just as she overcame her hesitation and hastily gulped the potion down with an expression of extreme distate, however, a deep rumbling shook the ground, causing her to drop the empty bottle in alarm. _“What?”_ sounded a thunderous, malevolent voice from above us. _“You would act against the will of the overlord Shinryu, whose power is greater than Harmony and Discord joined?”_

Hikari, Cloud and I all raised our swords as a monstrous form materialized in the air above. The form was that of a great many-spiked dragon covered in silver scales on the back and sides and golden scales and spines all over the front, with silver-and-gold wings and a reddish mane behind several long silver head-horns. “What do you want, fiend?” Cloud demanded of this being with a loathing tone that I could tell was hitherto reserved exclusively for Sephiroth.

_“What I have wanted since the very first cycle in which Cosmos and Chaos summoned champions to do battle on their behalf, of course,” _Shinryu answered with satisfaction. _“Something for which I have waited thirteen cycles, and which I now come to claim, as your Esper companion’s actions have forced me to act in haste.”_ He fixed his attentions on Terra again, who had now transformed into a feminine but wild-looking creature with pink-and-violet fur and golden claws on her hands and feet—this must be her Esper form, into which she only transformed when she felt truly threatened. _“Be still, girl,” Shinryu bade, landing dangerously close in front of Terra, who squeezed her eyes shut in petrified horror. The dragon-like being hunched over the frightened girl and extended his arms on either side of her, at about hip-level, and a shimmering white ball of energy appeared behind her, halfway between the two deadly steely claws. Shinryu stepped back, bringing the energy-ball forward to pass through Terra’s body, and as it did, it became more solid and changed from white to a marbling of Terra’s violet-pink and a brilliant shade of aqua. ___

___“None of you may breathe a word of this, lest I make the consequences dire in the extreme,”_ Shinryu announced at last to everyone. _“But fear not, Terra Branford, for when you have at last destroyed the nihilist who is your foe, you will return to your wasted world with the boon of which your world is in greatest need.”_ Within moments of finishing his speech, the dragon-being and the power-sphere he held vanished; only afterward did Terra return to her human form._ _

__Terra remained standing there, eyes wild with fear, wringing her hands nervously, her entire body shaking. “What just happened?” she whimpered. “How am I even still alive?”_ _

__“It doesn’t matter how, Terra, only that you _are_ still alive,” I reassured her, now sheathing my sword and stepping forward to draw the girl into my arms. Cloud did the same, embracing Terra from behind, and together we held her and comforted her, fearful on some level lest she collapse and be broken beyond repair. This sudden appearance of the dragon-god Shinryu, before whom Cosmos and Chaos both were apparently powerless, did not bode well, especially after Terra had been caught between Kefka and Sephiroth in the worst way possible and had already suffered a great deal because of it._ _


	14. How's this?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having learned the truth behind the attack on Sephiroth in the World of Darkness, Ultimecia reports her findings to Chaos, God of Discord.

**How’s this?** _(attack, Ultimecia using charged Knight’s Arrow)_

Chaos would be immensely pleased to hear what news I would bear.

As would the soldier Sephiroth.

In going to the Order’s Sanctuary to recover the recipe book that the monkey-tailed thief Zidane Tribal had stolen from me, I had learned something of great importance. I was now able to verify what nearly the entire Old Chaos Shrine suspected, having heard confirming testament from the soldiers of Cosmos. The insane harlequin, Kefka Palazzo (infernal irritant that he was), was very definitely guilty of the treasonous attack that had wounded Sephiroth to incapacitation.

Of course, it was doubtful that the silver-haired swordsman had been the real target…

Several hours before it was known that there had been a disturbance, Sephiroth had approached me with a request for a potion that would induce lust, stating that he intended to use it to seduce the girl who was Kefka’s enemy, the Cosmos-serving red mage Terra Branford. Although he had not explicitly stated the reason for his scheme of seduction, I perceived that he intended either to sway the young ingénue willingly back to the side of Chaos, or to empower her through carnal pleasures so that she could remove her annoyance of an enemy from the discord-god’s ranks. Both results would have been beneficial, although they were mutually exclusive; therefore I felt perfectly right in honoring Sephiroth’s request.

Perhaps, then, upon catching up once the silver-haired swordsman had captured the girl and spirited her to seclusion, Kefka felt distinctly threatened to overhear the plying manipulation with which Sephiroth would overpower the last of Terra’s resistance: the promise to pour some measure of his power into her so that she would easily defeat the insane clown. If that was the case, Kefka had obviously thwarted such a plan by striking Sephiroth and Terra both with his powerful “Light of Judgment” while the two were verily distracted with one another and did not notice his presence. Or did he intend that any other Chaos-serving man who set eyes on Terra Branford ought to rape the girl, if not to relinquish her to his imprisonment? He must have been angered to learn the hard way, then, that even among Chaos’s ranks, not all men’s tastes run to rape—therefore if Sephiroth would not make Terra suffer, then he, Kefka, would try to destroy them both.

It was fortunate that the irritant clown had failed on both counts; it would have been a great pity if a certain one of Emperor Mateus’s plans failed because Terra had died and was therefore unable to fulfill her part in it, and I had no more wish of seeing Sephiroth fall than Chaos had.

So matters stood when I had finally flown all the way back to my domain and stepped through my mirror, entering the Old Chaos Shrine through my room in the warriors’ quarters.

And speak of the devil! I was barely three steps up the hall when Sephiroth waylaid me. “A moment of your time, if you will,” he bade, indicating with a glance behind me that he would follow me back to my room and we would talk there. “I have some information that you might consider significant.”

“Interesting, because I too have information that I think you want to hear,” I replied, “and what’s more, Chaos himself is also keenly interested, no doubt. What say you that we both report?”

“As you wish.”

Sure enough, as if he sensed that not one but two of his chosen lieutenants possessed important knowledge to pass along, Chaos was seated expectantly on his throne when Sephiroth and I entered the great throne room. “I understand that one or both of you possesses information that you would like to share,” the discord-god stated. “By all means, do share what you know.”

“Very well,” Sephiroth began. “First of all, though—Ultimecia, when I approached you with my request for a potion to induce lust, and you happened to be brewing precisely such a draught, didn’t you say that you were doing so because your bottle of lust-inducing potion had been stolen from you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” I admitted. Did he know who had stolen it?

I did not even need to ask. “Well, you should know that the most recent of Kefka Palazzo’s attempts at petty provocation involved him shattering a glass bottle over me that contained what I originally thought was cherry soda,” the silver-haired swordsman recanted. “Only when I lay in my quarters-room recovering from severe injury did I remember that the lust-inducing potion that you gave me, when I’d asked for it so that I could seduce Terra Branford, was also a cherry-like shade of dark red.”

“Are you saying that you suspect Kefka Palazzo of setting you on the trail of his adversary, the young Miss Branford, through the use of a stolen lust-inducing potion?” Chaos inquired in summary.

“Yes,” Sephiroth stated, “for he beat a hasty retreat as soon as he had sprayed me with glass and potion. Having had it up to _here_ with the irritant clown’s antics, I gave chase; however, he outran me due to his generous head start. As I cleaned myself up and tended to the broken-glass scratches covering me afterward, I recalled that Terra Branford was the soldier of Cosmos who is slated to oppose Kefka, and that, I believe, is when the lust potion started to take effect.”

“But you devised a plan,” I interjected. “Even though you knew not why you lusted, you thought of a way in which you could use your lust for Terra to your advantage.”

Chaos considered Sephiroth carefully. “You believed that if you could not sway the girl willingly back to my ranks through your beguilement, then seducing her would still be an excellent means of antagonizing your own enemy, Cloud Strife,” he surmised aloud. “Or perhaps you considered it advantageous to allow Terra Branford the illusion of victory against her foe, that it would place us all one step closer to our final victory over Cosmos. But in any case, you considered it far more profitable to take Miss Branford by trickery than by force; hence your visit to Ultimecia with the request for a lust-inducing potion. And hence she, who enjoys the idea of seduction taking place, was only too disposed to honor a reasonably simple request.”

I nodded in agreement.

“What went wrong, then?” Chaos surprised us both momentarily with his inquiry. “What was the cause of disturbance in the World of Darkness, the one that called for immediate investigation by Garland and the Cloud of Darkness?”

“As I was unaware at that point that a disturbance had taken place,” I began, “I will only recant what has happened and what I know. Shortly before your summons to the throne room for interrogation, Your Lordship, I met the monkey-tailed thief Zidane Tribal in my domain. His presence there indicated that he knew me to be responsible, in part, for some ill fate that had befallen Terra, who has the distinction of being the only woman among the soldiers of Cosmos in this cycle of conflict…”

“I sensed that this might be the cause of your angry state at the time of interrogation,” Chaos interrupted. “Your own nemesis, Squall Leonhart, interfered in such a way as gave Tribal the cover that he had needed to steal something from you.”

I nodded with an annoyed sigh. “When I discovered my copy of _100 Potions for the Grand Sorceress_ to be missing,” I went on, “I endeavored to retrieve it at once. I made my way toward the Order’s Sanctuary, prepared to bargain for the return of my recipe book, and there I learned the truth of what everyone thus far suspects: Kefka Palazzo is indeed responsible for the disturbance, the magic-blast that, among other consequences, wounded Sephiroth to incapacitation.”

“And you heard this directly from whichever of Terra’s allies rescued her?” Sephiroth cut in.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I did manage to draw it out of them eventually,” I replied. “I made a passing mention of the manipulation that you doubtless used to overcome the last of Terra’s resistance,” I explained to him, “the offer to pour your power into her so that she could strike the clown so much harder—and Terra herself replied, and I quote: _‘And it might have worked, if only Kefka hadn’t lashed out with his Light of Judgment.’_ The hot-blooded rebel Firion then added a statement to the effect that the mad clown-mage’s blast had drawn his attention, and after a brief skirmish, Kefka had made some taunt about Terra being in trouble just before he vanished.”

“That would explain why one in the patrolling party—either Garland or the Cloud of Darkness—left one of Firion’s hand-axes, picked up as evidence from the scene, on my nightstand,” Sephiroth added. “It proves that Firion was Terra’s rescuer, just as Garland’s account evidently proved that the child Luneth had predictably run to Cloud for help when I made a point of capturing Terra on his watch.”

“For even if your intention toward Terra was seduction instead of rape, you wanted for Cloud Strife to immediately fear the worst on her account when he learned of her being kidnapped,” I reasoned aloud.

Chaos tsked audibly to recapture our attention. “So the summary of your combined report is that Kefka Palazzo is definitely responsible for the treasonous attack on Sephiroth,” he stated. “You have reason to suspect that Kefka’s original ploy was a rape-by-proxy with Terra Branford as the target; hence the use of a lust-inducing potion to set the intended proxy on the trail of the target. But when Sephiroth devised his own plan, one to which seduction was far more conducive than rape, you believe that Kefka then tried to destroy both the target and the ally of his who failed to cooperate.”

“Why else would that clown be making himself scarce right now,” Sephiroth pointed out, “if not because he is attempting to escape punishment for his actions in the World of Darkness?”

“Very well,” Chaos answered. “Sephiroth, you may, if you are feeling recovered enough to do so, start your own search-and-capture pursuit of Kefka Palazzo. I will wait here, and will interrogate him when he is brought in.” As the silver swordsman turned to depart, the discord-god added, “And if you happen to cross the path of Emperor Mateus, tell him that I have sent for him with a special request.”

I turned to leave a moment after Sephiroth was out of earshot, but Chaos rose from his throne and stopped me with a hand upon my shoulder. “You will remain here at least until Mateus reports,” he admonished, “for you, as well, are needed to honor this ‘special request’ of mine.”

Was it wrong of me that Chaos’s words, in spite of the look in his eyes when he said them, only gave me the barest hint of foreboding?


	15. No more running...I can protect everything!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terra faces her fears and confronts Kefka.

**No more running…I can protect everything!** _(attack; Terra charging Riot Blade)_

I had always hated fighting, but I knew that I couldn’t hide in the Order’s Sanctuary forever. I had obviously been brought to this piecemeal world to champion Cosmos, Goddess of Harmony because Kefka—my world’s enemy, and even more my foe on a personal level than that of any of my old Returner friends—had cast his lot with Chaos, God of Discord. To do right by Cosmos, I needed to confront and defeat Kefka. The sooner I did so, the better, especially since I had decidedly strayed from the right path once already in my journey through this strange parallel universe—when I had been tricked into accepting help from the Chaos-serving soldier Sephiroth.

Currently I was in the Rift, rapidly approaching a portal that I felt certain led into Kefka’s tower, as it would have been rebuilt in this piecemeal world. It had to be leading there—why else would I be feeling my Esper form rising to the fore again, like it did when the dragon-god Shinryu had suddenly appeared?

“You think this portal leads to where you’ll inevitably face that clownish fiend?” Cloud asked of me, as he had accompanied me per Hikari’s orders. Even now he reached behind him, as if to summon the huge broadsword to which he referred as the “Buster Sword.”

“I wouldn’t be feeling this on-edge if I didn’t think so,” I admitted. Kefka was obviously not nearly as powerful in this parallel universe as he had been at home, else I certainly never would have survived his attempt on my life, but I knew better than to take him, or any Chaos-serving warrior, lightly. But another possibility had occurred to me: “Should my senses be tingling so soon, though, after what I’ve been through?”

Cloud paused, slightly confused. “What do you mean?”

I took a breath, unsure for a moment of how to phrase my question. “Well, you must know that I was awake for some time but couldn’t move or open my eyes because I was in a lot of pain,” I began, “and nearly everyone’s voices sounded like screaming to my ears in that state, except Firion’s when he explained things to you and Luneth, and yours when you led someone away—Hikari, I think—so you could explain about something called ‘mako injections’ regularly given to soldiers in your world. You mentioned that mako enhances strength and endurance, as well as sharpening the senses—but it also makes people hypersensitive to everything for a while when they’re first injected with it. Am I right?” I supposed that I should ask, because I needed to know if Cloud knew something of his world’s brand of magic that was, or might be, affecting my condition.

“Yes; you catch on pretty quickly,” Cloud confirmed. “What worried me was the fact that when men are in the SOLDIER program long enough, mako traces are known to show up in semen. Usually that’s not a problem for any woman who sleeps with a soldier; it takes a lot more than a trace to have any effect on her. But when I first tried to heal you, you were showing a level of hypersensitivity typical to people given too much mako, victims of what’s known as mako poisoning. It really worried me to think you might be so sensitive to mako, because of your Esper nature, that even the trace you’d gotten was detrimental to you.”

“Well, it could also have been because you were angry and worked-up. Not exactly a ‘healing’ frame of mind,” I offered as we plunged into the portal together, “although I’m sure I would’ve felt the same way if our places were switched; if Kefka had ambushed you or something.”

Cloud nodded heavily. “Maybe. You whined and whimpered a lot less, and didn’t flinch at my touch, when I tried to heal you several hours later. After I’d gotten some sleep,” he amended. “Or, like Firion said, it could’ve been the lust potion—since Sephiroth used it on you to make you enjoy his touch when you shouldn’t have, it probably also made _my_ touch painful to you.”

“It could’ve been any combination of those things,” I agreed. Then another thought occurred to me, and I hoped that Cloud wouldn’t censure me for being ignorant or naïve. “You probably think me naïve for thinking this,” I began with some embarrassment, “but I honestly don’t think Sephiroth had any idea that his mako wouldn’t play nice with my Esper magic—I mean, since the fact that he used a lust potion on me would tend to indicate that he didn’t want to hurt me…”

“There’s no telling what his real motives are,” Cloud explained, shaking his head. “But yeah, he obviously _had_ a motive other than just wanting sex, or else he’d have taken you by force. For all we know, he could’ve even been telling you the truth when he said he wanted to see you beat Kefka and…”

“Oh, but I got the drop on him, didn’t I?” an all-too-familiar taunting voice interrupted Cloud. Instantly I felt my Esper form take over, every magic at my power pulsing dangerously at my golden-clawed fingertips, as Kefka reared his ugly head from a high ledge and erupted in a harsh cackle. “You, Chocobo-head, you should be licking my boots in gratitude for blasting your enemy into oblivion for you!”

Cloud glared angrily at Kefka, Buster Sword appearing in his hands in a flash of light. “I don’t owe any thanks to anyone who tries to kill one of my friends, no matter what they do to my enemy,” he spat contemptuously. “Because I know Sephiroth wasn’t your target. Terra was.”

“She brought it on herself, of course,” Kefka sneered. “Couldn’t even get herself raped the way she deserved. What a waste!”

I had heard more than enough. I gathered energy into one hand and flung a fireball at Kefka, singing his cheek and ear with it. He turned to me with an angry snarl. “I’m _so_ going to make you pay for that, you rebellious little bitch!” he shouted at me, flinging bolts of destructive energy in retaliation, which I deftly dodged. “Hopes—dreams—love—you’ll regret you even _heard_ of any of those, let alone tried fighting for them! I’m gonna destroy _everything!_ ”

_Not this time, Kefka,_ I thought. “I’ll protect the future, no matter what you do!” And for one of all too few times in my life, I was resolved. Convicted. I would defeat Kefka in this piecemeal world, as I must. I would gain my crystal. 

And I would return home to the world that needed me.

I leapt into the air, flinging spell after spell at my enemy, swiftly evading Kefka’s lightning and fireballs. I was barely aware of his taunts, or of the way that shrapnel showered me in nicks and scratches whenever Kefka’s spells hit the tall glass columns throughout the tower and shattered them. It felt as if nothing would shake my determination to destroy my enemy as he deserved. Kefka had made himself a severe headache to my Cosmos-serving allies, and I doubted very much that Chaos would have taken lightly to the mad clown-mage incapacitating Sephiroth with the same blast that had almost killed me. I doubted that Chaos would be sorry to see Kefka go if I destroyed him here and now.

Suddenly, however, I found myself boxed into a mystic triangular prism for a split second before an incinerating heat-blast engulfed me, and I could barely even cry out in pain before I felt a hard impact that slammed the breath out of my lungs. I had fallen, and Kefka loomed somewhere above me again, gloating with his hateful cackle. “Was it painful for you, my dear, to wake up in Cosmos’s little nest,” he taunted, “knowing that you _deserved_ my Light of Judgment in all its hell-fire? Was it painful to face your so-called friends, knowing that even your too-sweet goddess couldn’t sway them all to forgive your sin? Did it hurt that you had to face Cloud after what you did, after you oh-so-willingly spread those pretty legs of yours for _his_ most hated enemy? How _any_ of the Cosmonauts forgive a slut like you is beyond me, absolutely beyond me…”

But I was barely listening. Even as Kefka spoke, I had slowly risen to my feet and formed a Gravity spell, drawing all the metal, stone, and broken glass scattered all over the place from the battle into a great spherical mass. One more blink, and I hurled my shrapnel-bomb at my enemy, unable to help my smirk of satisfaction at the sharp cry that told me that my aim was true.

Kefka was a mess when he stumbled up from the wreckage: hair loosened from its feathered ponytail, makeup unmade, rips and tears in his flashy clothes and cuts beneath them (both of which too numerable to bother with counting). Even so, he began to gather destructive energies into his hands, murmuring a mixture of incantations and obscenities that steadily rose with the impending release of the spell.

I was quicker. Almost beyond my control, the most powerful of my magic pulsed into my fingertips, building higher and higher—and just as Kefka’s voice and magic rose to fever pitch, with the simultaneous back-handed swipes of both of my Esper claws I sent the destructive energy flying toward my foe in a dozen deadly blades. “I won’t be defeated!”

Soon enough, however, I saw that Kefka was not the only Chaos-serving warrior whom I had struck with my Riot Blade spell. When the blinding light of the spell dissipated, I saw that Sephiroth had emerged from the shadows and was now holding the bedraggled Kefka in a viselike grip by the scruff of the neck, tracing his other black-gloved hand over a gash on his cheek and healing it. Unlike before, however, without the influence of a lust-inducing potion to suppress it, my magic pulsed dangerously at my fingertips.

Whether to threaten me, or whatever his impetus was, Sephiroth gave Kefka a violent shake, eliciting pained whimpers and dislodging a long-stemmed red rose to fall from the folds of the harlequin’s torn robes. “Excellent work, Terra,” he began to congratulate me with an extremely pleased glint in his eyes to match the smirk on his thin lips. “You’ve defeated this insane clown, and you’ve done your duty well. Now it’s my turn to make the infernal nuisance pay for what he did in the World of Darkness. But before I drag him back to the Old Chaos Shrine, I believe that this hand-axe belongs to the same ally of yours as that wild rose at our feet.” As he spoke, he produced a hand-axe identical to the ones that Firion often threw at enemies, dropping it to fall beside the rose.

“You mean to thank Firion for having rescued me, in light of Kefka’s actions,” I acknowledged in as neutral a tone as I could muster. I didn’t want to be hostile toward Sephiroth unless it became necessary, as I certainly knew that he had treated me far better than one would expect from somebody on Chaos’s side of the conflict, all things considered. However, I was also unsure as to how to save face in front of Cloud, who would not appreciate me showing respect or cordiality to his enemy. “Very well, I’ll see that he has the wild rose and his hand-axe returned to him. Nothing more.” Diplomacy had never been what I considered one of my strengths, and I really didn’t want to be dragged into another fight, which was exactly what would happen if Cloud and Sephiroth started fighting.

Sephiroth nodded politely in answer to my statement, but as he tilted his head up to look to a place above and behind me, his smirk turned into a scathing glare—I realized that he must have caught sight of Cloud. “And as for you, puppet,” he sneered as Cloud jumped down protectively beside me, Buster Sword in hand, “I’ll deal with you later.” Extending a long black-feathered single wing from his back, Sephiroth took off into the shadows with Kefka in tow.

It took several minutes after both Chaos-serving warriors were gone for my magic to recede enough that I could relax into my human form again. As I did, a shimmering red glow appeared in the air above me, and as it descended to float just before me, it materialized into a crystalline red stone with black inclusions, like a piece of magicite from home. Was this my crystal?

As I gingerly took the crystal into my hands, I heard a familiar voice begin to speak to me. It was the voice of the dragon-god Shinryu, albeit much softer than when he had made his menacing appearance in the Order’s Sanctuary. _You have done well, Terra Branford,_ he stated. _Only one trial remains for you to endure, and then your world in need of rescuing will once again welcome you home._

What sort of trial, then, did I need to endure before I could return home? Shinryu had promised me a boon, but I would need to return home to receive it…what obstacle still stood in my way?

“What game is he playing?” Cloud growled, snapping me out of my reverie, before he seemed to reconsider—“Scratch that. Forget Sephiroth—what game is _Chaos_ playing?”

I didn’t understand. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I can’t help but wonder what the hell is going on when one gets a crystal by defeating the enemy but not destroying him,” Cloud answered. “That doesn’t seem right. There’s a more sinister plot at work here.”

Cloud was right; it did seem wrong, somehow, that I hadn’t finished Kefka off, but I had my crystal nonetheless. Was this, too, part of Chaos’s plan, or Shinryu’s? One thing was certain: since Kefka was still alive, my part in this piecemeal world was still incomplete.

There was still something I must do.


End file.
